De Morte Peregrini

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

“He left home, then, for the second time, to roam about, possessing an ample source of funds in the Christians, through whose ministrations he lived in unalloyed prosperity. For a time he battened himself thus; but then, after he had transgressed in some way even against them—he was seen, I think, eating some of the food that is forbidden them[*](In Acts 15, 29 the apostles and the elder brethren prescribe abstaining “from sacrifices offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled’? (eidoAd8ura kat alya Kat amucrd). Probably what Lucian has in mind is pagan sacrificial meats. This may be just a guess, from the way he puts it; but if so, it is highly plausible on account of the )— they no longer accepted him, and so, being at a loss, he thought he must sing a palinode and demand his possessions back from his city. Submitting a petition, he expected to recover them by order of the Emperor. Then, as the city sent representatives to oppose the claim, he achieved nothing, but was directed to abide by what he had once for all determined, under no compulsion from anyone.

“Thereafter he went away a third time, to Egypt, to visit Agathobulus,[*](In Demonax, 3, Lucian alludes to Agathobulus as one of those with whom Demonax had studied. The teacher of Peregrinus was therefore reputable as well as famous. ) where he took that wonderful course of training in asceticism, shaving one half of his head, daubing his face with mud, and demonstrating what they call‘ indifference’ by erecting his notorious indifference of the Cynics towards what they ate. Peregrinus may have signalised his relapse to Cynicism by sampling a “dinner of Hecate” at the cross-roads.

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yard amid a thronging mob of bystanders,[*](The allusion is to that variety of “indifferent” action (.e. neither good nor bad) ascribed to Diogenes himself by Dio Chrysostom VI, 16-20 (pp. 203-204 z). ) besides giving and taking blows on the back-sides with a stalk of fennel, and playing the mountebank even more audaciously in many other ways.

“From there, thus equipped, he set sail for Italy and immediately after disembarking he fell to abusing everyone, and in particular the Emperor,[*](Antoninus Pius. ) knowing him to be mild and gentle, so that he was safe in making bold. The Emperor, as one would expect, cared little for his libels and did not think fit to punish for mere words a man who only used philosophy as a cloak, and above all, a man who had made a profession of abusiveness. But in our friend’s case, even from this his reputation grew, among simple folk anyhow, and he was a cynosure for his recklessness, until finally the city prefect, a wise man, packed him off for immoderate indulgence in the thing, saying that the city had no need of any such philosopher. However, this too made for his renown, and he was on everybody’s lips as the philosopher who had been banished for his frankness and excessive freedom, so that in this respect he approached Musonius, Dio, Epictetus, and anyone else who has been in a similar predicament.

“Coming at last to Greece under these circumstances, at one moment he abused the Eleans, at another he counselled the Greeks to take up arms against the Romans,[*](The life of Antoninus Pius (Script. Hist. Aug.), § 5, notes suppression of a rebellion in Achaia, ) and at another he libelled a man outstanding in literary attainments and position because he had been a benefactor to Greece in many

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ways, and particularly because he had brought water to Olympia and prevented the visitors to the festival from dying of thirst, maintaining that he was making the Greeks effeminate, for the spectators of the Olympic games ought to endure their thirst—yes, by Heaven, and even to lose their lives, no doubt, many of them, through the frequent distempers which formerly ran riot in the vast crowd on account of the dryness of the place![*](The man was the famous Herodes Atticus. For the aqueduct built by him at Olympia see Frazer’s Pausanias, Vol. IV, pp. 72 ff. Philostratus (Vit. Soph. II, 1, 33) records that Herodes was often berated by Proteus, to whom on one occasion he hinted that it might at least be done in Greek. ) And he said this while he drank that same water! When they almost killed him with stones, mobbing him with one accord, he managed to escape death at the moment by fleeing to Zeus for sanctuary (stout fellow !),

and afterwards, at the next Olympiad, he gave the Greeks a speech which he had composed during the four years that had intervened, praising the man who had brought in the water and defending himself for running away at that time. “At last he was disregarded by all and no longer so admired; for all his stuff was stale and he could not turn out any further novelty with which to surprise those who came in his way and make them marvel and stare at him—a thing for which he had a fierce craving from the first. So he devised this ultimate venture of the pyre, and spread a report among the Greeks immediately after the last Olympic games that he would burn himself up at the next festival.