De Morte Peregrini

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 4. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

‘Some say that he is beginning to think better of it; that he reports certain dreams, to the effect that Zeus will not suffer the holy place to be profaned. Let him be easy on that score. I dare swear that not a God of them will have any objection to a rogue’s dying a rogue’s death. To be sure, he won’t easily get out of it now. His Cynic friends egg him on and thrust him pyre-wards; they keep his ambition aglow; there shall be no flinching, if they can help it! If Proteus would take a couple of them with him in the fatal leap, it would be the first good action he has ever performed.

'Not even “ Proteus ” will serve now, they were saying he has changed his name to Phoenix; that Indian bird being credited with bringing a prolonged existence to an end upon apyre. He tells strange tales too, and quotes

v.4.p.89
oracles—guaranteed old—to the effect that he is to be a guardian spirit of the night. Evidently he has conceived a fancy for an altar, and looks to have his statue set up, all of gold.

And upon my word it is as likely as not that among the simple vulgar will be found some to declare that Proteus has cured them of the ague, and that in the darkness they have met with the “ guardian spirit of the night.” And as the ancient Proteus, the son of Zeus, the great original, had the gift of prophecy, I suppose these precious disciples of the modern one will be for getting up an oracle and a shrine upon the scene of cremation. Mark my words: we shall find we have got Protean priests of the scourge; priests of the branding-iron; priests of some strange thing or other; or —who knows?—nocturnal rites in his honour, with a torchlight procession about the pyre.

I heard but now, from a friend, of Theagenes’s producing a prophecy of the Sibyl on this subject: he quoted the very words:

  • What time the noblest of the Cynic host
  • Within the Thunderer’s court shall light a fire,
  • And leap into its midst, and thence ascend
  • To great Olympus—then shall all mankind,
  • Who eat the furrow’s fruit, give honour due
  • To the Night-wanderer. His seat shall be
  • Hard by Hephaestus and lord Heracles.

    • That’s the oracle that Theagenes says he heard from the Sibyl. Now I'll give him one of Bacis’s on the same subject. Bacis speaks very much to the point as follows:

  • What time the Cynic many-named shall leap,
  • Stirred in his heart with mad desire for fame,
  • Into hot fire—then shall the Fox-dogs all,
  • His followers, go hence as went the Wolf.
  • And him that shuns Hephaestus’ fiery might
  • Th’ Achaeans all shall straightway slay with stones;
  • Lest, cool in courage, he essay warm words,
  • Stuffing with gold of usury his scrip;
  • For in fair Patrae he hath thrice five talents.
    • v.4.p.90
    What say you, friends? Can Bacis turn an oracle too, as well as the Sibyl? Apparently it is time for the esteemed followers of Proteus to select their spots for “ evaporation,” as they call burning.’