De Morte Peregrini

“These are the two noblest masterpieces that the world has seen—the Olympian Zeus, and Proteus; of the one, the creator and artist was Phidias, of the other, Nature. But now this holy image is about to depart from among men to gods, borne on the wings of fire, leaving us bereft.” After completing this discourse with copious perspiration, he shed tears in a highly ridiculous way and tore his hair, taking care not to pull very hard; and at length he was led away, sobbing as he went, by some of the Cynics, who strove to comfort him.

After him, another man went up at once,[*](Evidently the Cynic had spoken from a high place (perhaps the portico of the asium) to which the new speaker now ascends. What Lucian has previously said (§ 2), together with his failure here to say a word about the identity or personality of the author of these remarks, puts it beyond doubt that the “other man” is Lucian himself, and that he expects his readers to draw this inference. The device is so transparent that its intent can be regarded only as artistic. It is employed also in The Hunuch, 10 (p. 341). Somewhat similar is his borrowing a Prologue from Menander to speak for him in The Mistaken Critic (p. 379). ) not permitting the throng to disperse, but pouring a libation on the previous sacrificial offerings while they were still ablaze. At first he laughed a long time, and obviously did it from the heart. Then he began somewhat after this fashion: “Since that accursed Theagenes terminated his pestilential remarks with the tears of Heraclitus, I, on the contrary, shall begin with the laughter of Democritus.” And again he went on laughing a long time, so that he

Then, changing countenance, he said, “Pray, what else, gentlemen, are we to do when we hear utterances so ridiculous, and see old men all but standing on their heads in public for the sake of a little despicable notoriety? That you may know what manner of thing is this ‘holy image’ which is about to be burned up, give me your ears, for I have observed his character and kept an eye on his career from the beginning, and have ascertained various particulars from his fellow-citizens and people who cannot have helped knowing him thoroughly.

“This creation and masterpiece of nature, this Polyclitan canon,[*](The proportions of the statue of a naked youth carrying a spear (the Doryphorus), made by Polyclitus, were analysed by the sculptor himself in a book called the Canon, and universally accepted as canonical for the male figure. ) as soon as he came of age, was taken in adultery in Armenia and got a sound thrashing, but finally jumped down from the roof and made his escape, with a radish stopping his vent. Then he corrupted a handsome boy, and by paying three thousand drachmas to the boy’s parents, who were poor, bought himself off from being brought before the governor of the province of Asia.

“All this and the like of it I propose to pass over ; for he was still unshapen clay, and our ‘holy image’ had not yet been consummated for us. What he did to his father, however, is very well worth hearing; but you all know it—you have heard how he strangled the aged man, unable to tolerate his living beyond sixty years. Then, when the affair had been noised abroad, he condemned himself to exile and roamed about, going to one country after another.