Fugitivi

Lucian of Samosata

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

ZEUS Have the philosophers made a plot against you?

PHILOSOPHY By no means, father. Why, they themselves have been wronged in common with me!

ZEUS At whose hands, then, have you been wronged, if you have no fault to find either with the common sort or with the philosophers ?

PHILOSOPHY There are some, Zeus, who occupy a middle ground between the multitude and the philosophers. In deportment, glance, and gait they are like us, and similarly dressed; as a matter of fact, they want to be enlisted under my command and they enroll themselves under my name, saying that they are my pupils, disciples, and devotees. Nevertheless, their

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abominable way of living, full of ignorance, impudence, and wantonness, is no trifling outrage against me. Itis they, father, who have inflicted the wrongs that have made me flee.

ZEUS This is a sad state of affairs, daughter. But in just what way have they wronged you?

PHILOSOPHY See for yourself, father, whether the wrongs are trifling. When you observed that the life of man was full of wrongdoing and transgression because stupidity and high-handedness were ingrained in it, and disturbed it, you pitied humanity, harried as it was by ignorance, and therefore sent me down, enjoining me to see to it that they should stop wronging each other, doing violence, and living like beasts; that they should instead fix their eyes on the verities and manage their society more peaceably. Anyhow, you said to me in sending me down: “What men do and how they are affected by stupidity, daughter, you see for yourself. I pity them, and so, as I think that you alone might be able to cure what is going on, I have selected you from among us all and send you to effect the cure.”

ZEUS I know I said a great deal at the time, including all this. But go on and tell me what followed, how they received you when you flew down for the first time and what has befallen you now at their hands.

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PHILOSOPHY When I sped off, father, I did not head for the Greeks straightway, but as it seemed to me the more difficult part of my task to educate and instruct the foreigners, I decided to do that first ; the Greek world I let be, as possible to subject very easily and likely (I thought so, anyhow) to take the bridle and submit to the harness very soon. Making for the Indians to begin with, the most numerous population in the world, I had na difficulty about persuading them to come down off their elephants and associate with me. Consequently, a whole tribe, the Brahmans, who border upon the Nechraei and the Oxydracae,[*](The Nechraei are not mentioned elsewhere, unless, as Fritzsche suggests, they are the Nereae of Pliny (Nat. Hist., VI, 76). The Oxydracae made themselves famous by their resolute opposition to the invasion of Alexander; they lived in the Punjab. ) are all enlisted under my command and not only live in accordance with my tenets, honoured by all their neighbours, but die a marvellous kind of death.

ZEUS You mean the gymnosophists.[*](A generic name given by the Greeks to the holy men of India who lived naked. ) Anyhow, I am told, among other things about them, that they ascend a very lofty pyre and endure cremation without any change in their outward appearance or their sitting position.[*](Apparently a correction of Peregrinus, where (p. 30) the position is spoken of as “lying.” ) But that is nothing much. Just now, for example, at Olympia I saw the same sort of thing done, and very likely you too were there at the time when the old man was burned.

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PHILOSOPHY I did not even go to Olympia, father, for fear of those detestable fellows whom I spoke of, since I saw many of them taking their way there in order to upbraid the assembled pilgrims and fill the back room of the temple with the noise of their howling.[*](The word is chosen because specially appropriate to Cynic “dogs.” ) Consequently, I did not see how he died.

But to resume—after the Brahmans I went direct to Ethiopia, and then down to Egypt; and after associating with their priests and prophets and instructing them in religion, I departed for Babylon, to initiate Chaldeans and Magi; then from there to Scythia, and then to Thrace, where I conversed with Eumolpus and Orpheus, whom I sent in advance to Greece, one of them, Eumolpus, to give them the mysteries, as he had learned all about religion from me, and the other to win them over by the witchery of his music. Then I followed at once on their heels.