Alexander

Although he cautioned all to abstain from intercourse with boys on the ground that it was impious, for his own part this pattern of propriety made a clever arrangement. He commanded the cities in Pontus and Paphlagonia to send choir-boys for three

He duped the simpletons in this way from first to last, ruining women right and left as well as living with favourites. Indeed, it was a great thing that everyone coveted if he simply cast his eyes upon a man’s wife; if, however, he deemed her worthy of a kiss, each husband thought that good fortune would flood his house. Many women even boasted that they had had children by Alexander, and their husbands bore witness that they spoke the truth !

I want to include in my tale a dialogue between Glycon and one Sacerdos, a man of Tius, whose intelligence you will be able to appraise from his questions. I read the conversation in an inscription in letters of gold, at Tius, in the house of Sacerdos. “Tell me, Master Glycon,’ said he, “who are you?” “I am the latter-day Asclepius,’ he replied. “A different person from the one of former times? What do vou mean?” “It is not permitted you to hear that.” “How many years will you tarry among us delivering oracles?” “One thousand and three.” “Then where shall you go?” “To Bactra and that region, for the barbarians too must profit by my presence among

1. Put not in Lepidus faith, for a pitiful doom is in waiting.

Indeed, he seriously imperilled one of the Epicureans who ventured to expose him in the presence of a great crowd. The man went up to him and said in a loud voice: “Come now, Alexander! You prevailed upon such-and-such a Paphlagonian to put his servants on trial for their lives before the governor of Galatia on the charge that they had murdered his son, a student at Alexandria, But the young man is living, and has come back alive after the execution of the servants, whom you gave over to the wild beasts.” What had happened was this. The young man cruised up the Nile as far as Clysma,[*](Probably Suez; the ancient canal from the Nile to the Red Sea ended there. ) and as a vessel was just putting to sea, was induced to join others in a voyage to India. Then because

When he told this tale, Alexander, indignant at the exposure and unable to bear the truth of the reproach, told the bystanders to stone him, or else they themselves would be accurst and would bear the name of Epicureans. They had begun to throw stones when a man named Demostratus who happened to be in the city, one of the most prominent men in Pontus,[*](I suspect that the Greek phrase is really a title, but cannot prove it ; the use of πρῶτος without the article seems to make the phrase mean “One of the First Citizens.” ) flung his arms about the fellow and saved him from death. But he had come very near to being overwhelmed with stones, and quite properly! Why did he have to be the only man of sense among all those lunatics and suffer from the idiocy of the Paphlagonians?

That man, then, was thus dealt with. Moreover, if in any case, when men were called up in the order of their applications (which took place the day before the prophecies were given out) and the herald enquired: “Has he a prophecy for So-and-so,” the reply came from within: “To the ravens,” nobody would ever again receive such a person under his roof or give him fire or water, but he had to be harried from country to country as an impious man, an atheist, and an Epicurean—which, indeed, was their strongest term of abuse.

One of Alexander’s acts in this connection was most comical. Hitting upon the “Established Beliefs’ of Epicurus, which is the finest of his books, as you know, and contains in summary the articles of the man’s philosophic creed,[*](Quis enim vostrum non edidicit Epicuri κυρίας δόξας, id est, quasi maxume ratas, quia gravissumae sint ad beate vivendum breviter enuntiatae sententiae? Cicero, de Fin. Bon, et Mal., ii, 7, 20. ) he brought it into the middle of the market-place, burned it on fagots of fig-wood just as if he were burning the man in person, and threw the ashes into the sea, even adding an oracle also:

1. Burn with fire, I command you, the creed of a purblind dotard !

Of all his bold emprises, however, let me tell you one, the greatest. Since he had no slight influence in the palace and at court through the favour which Rutilianus enjoyed, he published an oracle at the height of the war in Germany, when the late Emperor Marcus himself had at last come to grips with the Marcomanni and Quadi. The oracle recommended that two lions be cast into the Danube alive, together with a quantity of perfumes and

1. Into the pools of the Ister, the stream that from Zeus taketh issue,
2. Hurl, I command you, a pair of Cybele’s faithful attendants,
3. Beasts that dwell on the mountains, and all that the Indian climate
4. Yieldeth of flower and herb that is fragrant ; amain there shall follow
5. Victory and great glory, and welcome peace in their footsteps.

As by this time throngs upon throngs were pouring in and their city was becoming overcrowded on account of the multitude of visitors to the shrine, so that it had not sufficient provisions, he devised

Sometimes, to amaze dolts, he would deliver an oracle for the benefit of someone who had neither enquired nor sent—who, in fact, did not exist at all. For example:

1. Seek thou out that man who in utmost secrecy shrouded
2. Tumbleth at home on the couch thy helpmeet Calligeneia,
3. Slave Protogenes, him upon whom thou fully reliest.
4. He was corrupted by thee, and now thy wife he corrupteth,
5. Making a bitter return unto thee for his own violation.
6. Aye more, now against thee a baneful charm they have fashioned
7. So that thou mayst not hear nor see what deeds they are doing ;
v.4.p.241
8. This shalt thou find on the floor, beneath thy bed, by the wall-side, :
9. Close to the head; thy servant Calypso shareth the secret.”

Again, to someone else who was not there and did not exist at all, he said in prose: “Go back; he who sent you was killed to-day by his neighbour Diocles, with the help of the bandits Magnus, Celer, and Bubalus, who already have been caught and imprisoned.”

I may say too that he often gave oracles to barbarians, when anyone put a question in his native language, in Syrian or in Celtic; since he readily found strangers in the city who belonged to the same nation as his questioners. That is why the time between the presentation of the scrolls and the delivery of the oracle was long, so that in the interval the questions might be unsealed at leisure without risk and men might be found who would be able to translate them fully. Of this sort was the response given to the Scythian:

Morphen eubargoulis eis skian chnechikrage leipsei phaos.[*](The oracle seems to contain some Greek, in the two phrases eis skian (into the darkness) and leipsei phaos (thou shalt leave the light of day); it is uncertain, however, whether these phrases belong to the original text, or to someone’s interpretation, which has become confused with the text, or are mere corruptions due to a scribe’s effort to convert “Scythian” into Greek. The “Scythian” part itself is a complete mystery. )

Let me also tell you a few of the responses that were given to me. When I asked whether Alexander was bald, and sealed the question carefully and conspicuously, a “nocturnal” oracle was appended :

Sabardalachou malachaattealos en.[*](In failing to submit this to the official interpreters, Lucian lost a priceless opportunity. )

1. Cytmis[*](Alexander’s nostrum ; cf c. 22. ) I bid you apply, combined with the spume of a charger.

1. Make not your journey by sea, but travel afoot by the highway.

Many such traps, in fact, were set for him by me and by others. For example, I put a single question, and wrote upon the outside of the scroll, following the usual form: “Eight questions from So-and-so,”’ using a fictitious name and sending the eight drachmas and whatever it came to besides.[*](Since the price of each oracle was one drachma, two obols, the indefinite plus was sixteen obols, or 2dr. 4 obols. ) Rely-

1. Low-voiced walks in the dusk are his pleasure, and impious matings.

And generally, I was of course the man he most hated. When he discovered that I had entered the city and ascertained that I was the Lucian of whom he had heard (I had brought, I may add, two soldiers with me, a pikeman and a spearman borrowed from the Governor of Cappadocia, then a friend of mine, to escort me to the sea), he at once sent for me very politely and with great show of friendliness. When I went, I found many about him; but I had brought along my two soldiers, as luck would have it. He extended me his right hand to kiss, as his custom was with the public; I clasped it as if to kiss it, and almost crippled it with a right good bite!

The bystanders tried to choke and beat me for sacrilege ; even before that, they had been indignant because I had addressed him as Alexander and not as Prophet.” But he mastered himself very hand-

Then, when I decided to sail—it chanced that I was accompanied only by Xenophon[*](Probably a slave or afreedman. He is not mentioned elsewhere in Lucian. ) during my visit, as I had previously sent my father and my family on to Amastris—he sent me many remembrances and presents, and promised too that he himself would furnish a boat and a crew to transport me. I considered this a sincere and polite offer; but when I was in mid-passage, I saw the master in tears, disputing with the sailors, and began to be very doubtful about the prospects. It was a fact that they had received orders from Alexander to throw us bodily into the sea. If that had been done, his quarrel with me would have been settled without ado; but by his tears the master prevailed upon his crew to do us no harm. “For sixty years, as you see,” said he to me, “I have led a blameless and God-fearing life, and I should not wish, at this age and with a wife and children, to stain my hands

He set us ashore at Aegiali (which noble Homer mentions[*](Iliad, 2, 855. )), and then they went back again.

There I found some men from the Bosporus who were voyaging along the coast. They were going as ambassadors from King Eupator to Bithynia, to bring the yearly contribution.[*](Tiberius Julius Eupator succeeded Rhoemetalces as King of the (Cimmerian) Bosporus, on the Tauric Chersonese ; its capital was Panticapaeum (Kertch). The period of his reign is about a.d. 154-171. At this time the kingdom seems to have been paying tribute to the Scythians annually as well as to the Empire (Toxaris, 44). ) I told them of the peril in which we had been, found them courteous, was taken aboard their vessel, and won safely through to Amastris, after coming so close to losing my life.

Thereupon I myself began to prepare for battle with him, and to employ every resource in my desire to pay him back. Even before his attempt upon me, I detested him and held him in bitter enmity on account of the vileness of his character. So I undertook to prosecute him, and had many associates, particularly the followers of Timocrates, the philosopher from Heraclea. But the then governor of Bithynia and Pontus, Avitus,[*](L. Lollianus Avitus, consul a.d. 144, proconsul Africae ca. 156, praeses Bithyniae 165. ) checked me, all but beseeching and imploring me to leave off, because out of good will to Rutilianus he could not, he said, punish Alexander even if he should find him clearly guilty of crime. In that way my effort was thwarted, and I left off exhibiting misplaced zeal before a judge who was in that state of mind.[*](Of course Lucian’s case, as it stood, was weak, as Avitus tactfully hinted. But this does not excuse Avitus. The chances of securing enough evidence to convict Alexander in a Roman court were distinctly good, and fear of Alexander’s influence is the only reasonable explanation of the failure to proceed, )

Was it not also a great piece of impudence on the part of Alexander that he should petition the Emperor to change the name of Abonoteichus and call it Ionopolis, and to strike a new coin bearing on one side the likeness of Glycon and on the other that of Alexander, wearing the fillets of his grandfather Asclepius and holding the falchion of his maternal ancestor Perseus?[*](S. Hippolytus (Refut. omn. Haeres. IV. 28-42) contains a highly interesting section “against sorcerers,” including (34) a treatment of this subject. It is very evidently not his own work ; and K. F. Hermann thought it derived from the treatise by Celsus. Ganschinietz, in Harnack’s Texte wnd Untersuchungen 39, 2, has disputed this, but upon grounds the representation of a snake with human head to the middle of the third cent (Head, Hist. Numm., 432, Cumont J.c., p. 42). The modern name Inéboli is a corruption of onopolis. )

In spite of his prediction in an oracle that he was fated to live a hundred and fifty years and then die by a stroke of lightning, he met a most wretched end before reaching the age of seventy, in a manner that befitted a son of Podaleirius;[*](As son of Podaleirius, it was fitting, thinks Lucian, that his leg (poda-) should be affected. )for his leg became mortified quite to the groin and was infested with maggots. It was then that his baldness was detected when because of the pain he let the doctors foment his head, which they could not have done unless his wig had been removed.

Such was the conclusion of Alexander’s spectacular career, and such the dénouement of the whole play ; being as it was, it resembled an act of Providence, although it came about by chance. It was inevitable, too, that he should have funeral games worthy of his career—that a contest for the shrine should arise. The foremost of his fellow-conspirators and . impostors referred it to Rutilianus to decide which of them should be given the preference, should suceeed to the shrine, and should be crowned with