De Morte Peregrini

And now, they say, he is playing the mountebank over that very thing, digging a pit,

“What he should have done, I think, was first and foremost to await death and not to cut and run from life ; but if he had determined to be off at all costs, not to use fire or any of these devices out of tragedy, but to choose for his departure some other form of death out of the myriads that there are. If, however, he is partial to fire as something connected with Heracles,. why in the world did he not quietly select a wellwooded mountain and cremate himself upon it in solitude, taking along only one person such as Theagenes here for his Philoctetes?[*](Philoctetes had helped Heracles to cremate himself on Mt. Oeta by kindling the pyre for him. ) On the contrary, it is in Olympia, at the height of the festival, all but in the theatre, that he plans to roast himself— not undeservedly, by Heracles, if it is right for parricides and for atheists to suffer for their hardinesses.[*](As the cremation actually took place at Harpina, two miles away from Olympia, and on the day after the festival closed, it may be that religious scruples (cf. § 26) caused Peregrinus to modify an original plan which involved its taking place at Olympia itself while the festival was in progress. ) And from that point of view he seems to be getting about it very late in the day; he ought long ago to have been flung into the bull of Phalaris[*](See Phalaris I, 11-12 (Vol. I, pp. 17 ff.). ) to pay the fitting penalty instead of opening his mouth to the flames once for all and expiring in a trice. For

“The spectacle is being planned, I suppose, as Something awe-inspiring—a fellow getting burnt up in a holy place where it is impious even to bury the others who die. But you have heard, no doubt, that long ago a man who wished to become famous burned the temple of Ephesian Artemis, not being able to attain that end in any other way.[*](Herostratus, in356 3.0, The Ephesians sought to defeat his object by forbidding anyone for all time to mention his name (Valerius Maximus, VIII, 14, 5). The prohibition, which very likely was accompanied by a curse, was far from ineffective, for nearly all ancient authors who mention the story, including Cicero and Plutarch, omit the name just as Lucian does, ) He himself has something similar in mind, so great is the craving for fame that has penetrated him to the core.

“He alleges, however, that he is doing it for the sake of his fellow men, that he may teach them to despise death and endure what is fearsome. For my part, I should like to ask, not him but you, whether you would wish malefactors to become his disciples in this fortitude of his, and to despise death and burning and similar terrors. No, you would not, I am very sure. How, then, is Proteus to draw distinctions in this matter, and to benefit the good without making the bad more adventurous and daring?

“Nevertheless, suppose it possible that only those will present themselves at this affair who will see it to their advantage. Once more I shall question you: would you desire your children to become imitators of such a man? You will not say so. But why did I ask that question, when even of his disciples them-

“Emulation is not a matter of wallet, staff, and mantle; all this is safe and easy and within anyone’s power. One should emulate the consummation and culmination, build a pyre of fig-wood logs as green as can be, and stifle one’s selfin the smoke of them. Fire itself belongs not only to Heracles and Asclepius, but to doers of sacrilege and murder, who can be seen enduring it by judicial sentence. Therefore it is better to employ smoke, which would be peculiar and belong only to you and your like.

“Besides, if Heracles really did venture any such act, he did it because he was ailing, because the blood of the Centaur, as the tragedies tell us, was preying upon him; but for what reason does this man throw himself bodily into the fire? Oh, yes! to demonstrate his fortitude, like the Brahmans, for Theagenes thought fit to compare him with them, just as if there could not be fools and notoriety-seekers even among the Indians. Well, then, let him at least imitate them. They do not leap into the fire (so Onesicritus says, Alexander’s navigator, who saw Calanus burning), but when they have built their pyre, they stand close beside it motionless and en-

“In this man’s case, what great thing will it be if he tumbles in and dies in the sudden grip of the fire? It is not beyond expectation that he will jump out half consumed, unless, as they say, he is going to see to it that the pyre is deep down in a pit.

There are people who say that he has even changed his mind, and is telling certain dreams, to the effect that Zeus does not permit pollution of a holy place.[*](See above, p. 25, and n. 3. ) But let him be assured on that score; I would take my oath to it that no one of the gods would be angry if Peregrinus should die a rogue’s death. Moreover, it is not easy for him to withdraw now; for his Cynic associates are urging him on and pushing him into the fire and inflaming his resolution; they will not let him shirk it. If he should pull a couple of them into the fire along with him when he jumps in, that would be the only nice thing about his performance.

“Thave heard that he no longer deigns to be called Proteus but has changed his name to Phoenix, because the phoenix, the Indian bird, is said to mount a pyre when it is very far advanced in age. Indeed, he even manufactures myths and repeats certain oracles, ancient, of course, to the purport that he is to become a guardian spirit of the night; it is plain, too, that he already covets altars and expects to be imaged in gold.

“By Zeus, it would be nothing unnatural if, among all the dolts that there are, some should be found to assert that they were relieved of quartan fevers by him, and that in the dark they had encountered the guardian spirit of the night! Then too these accursed disciples of his will make an oracular shrine, I suppose, with a holy of holies, at the site of the pyre, because the famous Proteus, son of Zeus, the progenitor of his name, was given to soothsaying.[*](Athenagoras reports that Parium, where Peregrinus was born, cherished a statue of him from which oracles were derived (Leg. de Christ., 26). ) I pledge m word, too, that priests of his will be appointed, wit whips or branding-irons or some such flummy-diddle, or even that a nocturnal mystery will be got up in his honour, including a torch festival at the site of the pye.

"Theagenes, as I have been told by one of my friends, recently said that the Sibyl had made a prediction about all this; in fact, he quoted the verses from memory :

1. But when the time shall come that Proteus, noblest of Cynics,
2. Kindleth fire in the precinct of Zeus, our Lord of the Thunder,
3. Leapeth into the flame, and cometh to lofty Olympus,
4. Then do I bid all alike who eat the fruit of the ploughland
5. Honour to pay unto him that walketh abroad in the night-time,
6. Greatest of spirits, thronéd with Heracles and Hephaestus.

“That is what Theagenes alleges he heard from the Sibyl. But I will quote him one of the oracles of

1. Nay, when the time shall come that a Cynic with names that are many
2. Leaps into roaring flame, soul-stirred by a passion for glory,
3. Then it is meet that the others, the jackals that follow his footsteps,
4. Mimic the latter end of the wolf that has taken departure.
5. But if a dastard among them shall shun the might of Hephaestus,
6. Let him be pelted with stones forthwith by all the Achaeans,
7. Learning, the frigid fool, to abjure all fiery speeches,
8. He that has laden his wallet with gold by the taking of usance ;
9. Thrice five talents he owns in the lovely city of Patras.

When he had said these words, all the bystanders shouted: “Let them be burned right now; they deserve the flames!” And the man got down again laughing; but “Nestor failed not to mark the din: 3 I mean Theagenes. When he heard the shouting he came at once, took the platform, and fell to

Well, there you have what happened at Elis; and when we reached Olympia, the rear chamber[*](Of the temple of Zeus; as it was open at the end, it formed a sort of portico. Cf. Runaways, 7; Herodotus, 1. ) was full of people criticising Proteus of praising his purpose, so that most of them even came to blows. Finally, Proteus himself appeared, escorted by a countless multitude, after the contest of the heralds, and had somewhat to say about himself, telling of the life that he had led and the risks that he had run, and of all the troubles that he had endured for philosophy’s sake. His speech was protracted, though I heard but little on account of the number of bystanders. Afterwards, fearing to be crushed in such a throng, because I saw this happening to many, I went away, bidding a long farewell to the sophist enamoured of death who was pronouncing his own funeral oration before his demise.

This much, however, I overheard; he said that he wanted to put a tip of gold on a golden bow;[*](Pandarus the Trojan (Iliad, IV, 111) put a tip of gold on the bow he had fashioned of horn. The golden bow (βιῷ) of Peregrinus is his life (βίῳ). ) for one who had lived as Heracles should die like Heracles and be commingled with the ether. “And I wish,” said he, “to benefit mankind by showing them the

You can imagine, I expect, how I laughed; for it was not fitting to pity a man so desperately in love with glory beyond all others who are driven by the same Fury. Anyhow, he was being escorted by crowds and getting his fill of glory as he gazed at the number of his admirers, not knowing, poor wretch, that men on their way to the cross or in the grip of the executioner have many more at their heels.

Soon the Olympic games were ended, the most splendid Olympics that I have seen, though it was then the fourth time that I had been a spectator. As it was not easy to secure a carriage, since many were leaving at the same time, I lingered on against my will, and Peregrinus kept making postponements, but at last had announced a night on which he would stage his cremation; so, as one of my friends had invited me to go along, I arose at midnight and took the road to Harpina, where the pyre was. This is quite twenty furlongs from Olympia as one goes past

When the moon was rising—for she too had to witness this glorious deed—he came forward, dressed in his usual fashion, and with him the leaders of the Cynics; in particular, the gentleman from Patras, with a torch—no bad understudy. Proteus too was bearing a torch. Men, approaching from this side and that, kindled the fire into a very great flame, since it came from torchwood and brush. Peregrinus—and give me your close attention now !— laying aside the wallet, the cloak, and that notable Heracles-club, stood there in a shirt that was downright filthy. Then he requested incense to throw on the fire; when someone had proffered it, he threw it on, and gazing towards the south—even the south, too, had to do with the show[*](C. R. Lanman (in Allinson, Lucian: Selected Writings, p. 200) thus explains the mystic allusion to the South: “It is to be noted that Yama—the first man who died and found out for all men the pathway ‘to a distant home, a dwellingplace secure ’—conducts souls to the ‘ Blessed Fathers’ in the south, the region of the Manes. See Atharvaveda 18, 3, 13; 4, 40, 2. So the monthly offerings (¢raddhas) to the Manes are performed in such a way that they end in the south (Manu’s Laws, 3,214). The invoking of the daipoves is in accord with Hindu thought; eg. the liturge in Hiranyakegin’s Grhya-sutra, 2, 10° (see F. Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the Kast, XXX, p. 226), after inviting the Manes, sprinkles water towards the south, saying: ‘ Divine waters, send us Agni.’ The νεκράγγελοι and νερτεροδρόμοι in 41 may be an echo of Yama’s messengers that has reached Lucian. See Atharvaveda 18, 2, 27 and H. C. Warren’s Buddhism in Translations, pp. 225-262.” )—he said: “Spirits of my mother and my father, receive me with favour.”

With that he leaped into the fire; he was not visible, however, but was encompassed by the flames, which had risen to a great height. Once more I see you laughing, Cronius, my

As I returned, I was thinking busily, my friend, reflecting what a strange thing love of glory is; how this passion alone is unescapable even by those who are considered wholly admirable, let alone that man who in other respects had led a life that was insane and reckless, and not undeserving of the fire.

Then I encountered many people coming out to see the show themselves, for they expected to find him still alive. You see, on the day before it had been given out that he would greet the rising sun, as, in fact, they say the Brahmans do, before mounting the pyre.

1. I am through with the earth; to Olympus I fare.

On my return to the festival, I came upon a greyhaired man whose face, I assure you, inspired confidence in addition to his beard and his general air of consequence, telling all about Proteus, and how, since his cremation, he had beheld him in white raiment a little while ago, and had just now left him walking about cheerfully in the Portico of the Seven Voices,[*](This was a portico on the east side of the Altis which had a sevenfold echo (Pausan., V, 21, 17; Pliny, XXXVI, 100). ) wearing a garland of wild olive. Then on