Deorum concilium

Lucian of Samosata

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

ZEUS No more murmuring, Gods, or gathering in corners and whispering in each other’s ears because you take it hard that many share our table who are not worthy. Now that a public meeting upon this question has been authorised, let each declare his opinion openly and bring his charges. Hermes, make the proclamation required by law.

HERMES Hear ye! Silence! Among the gods of full standing, entitled to speak, who desires to do so? The question concerns resident aliens and foreigners.

MOMUS I, Momus here, Zeus, if you would let me speak.

ZEUS The proclamation itself gives permission, so that you will have no need of mine,

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MOMUS Well then, I say that some of us behave shockingly ; it is not enough for them that they themselves have become gods instead of men, but unless they can make their very attendants and servants as good as we are, they do not think they have done anything important or enterprising. And I beg you, Zeus, to let me speak frankly, for I could not do otherwise. Everybody knows how free of speech I am, and disinclined to hush up anything at all that is ill done. I criticize everybody and express my views openly, without either fearing anyone or concealing my opinion out of respect, so that most people think me vexatious and meddling by nature; they call me a regular public prosecutor. However, inasmuch as it is according to law, and the proclamation has been made, and you, Zeus, allow me to speak with complete liberty, I shall do so, without anyreservations.

Many, I say, not content that they themselves take part in the same assemblies as we and feast with us on equal terms, and that too when they are half mortal, havelugged up into heaven their own servants and boon-companions and have fraudulently registered them, so that now they receive largesses and share in sacrifices on an equal footing without even having paid us the tax of resident aliens.

ZEUS Let us have no riddles, Momus ; speak in plain and explicit language, and supply the name, too. Asit is, you have flung your statement into the midst of us

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all, so that many are making guesses and applying your remarks now to one and now to another. Being an exponent of frankness, you must not stick at saying anything.

MOMUS It is splendid, Zeus, that you actually urge me to frankness; that is a truly royal, high-souled action. Therefore I shall give the name. It is this peerless Dionysus, who is half human; in fact, on his mother’s side he is not even Greek, but the grandson of a Syrophoenician trader named Cadmus. Inasmuch as he has been honoured with immortality, I say nothing of the man himself—either of his hood or of his drunkenness or of his gait; for you all, I think, see that he is womanish and unmanly in his character, half crazy, with strong drink on his breath from the beginning of the day. But he has foisted upon us a whole clan; he presents himself at the head of his rout, and has made gods out of Pan and Silenus and the Satyrs, regular farm-hands and goat-herds, most of them—capering fellows with queer shapes. One of them has horns and looks like a goat from the waist down, and wears a long beard, so that he is not much different from a goat. Another is a baldpated gaffer with a flat nose who usually rides on a donkey. He is a Lydian. The Satyrs are prickeared, and they too are bald, with horns like those that bud on new-born kids; they are Phrygians, and they all have tails. D’ye see what sort of gods he is making for us, the bounder?

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And then we wonder that men despise us when they see such laughable and portentous deities! I omit to mention that he has also brought up two women, one his sweetheart Ariadne, whose very head-band he has admitted into the starry choir, and the other the daughter of Icarius the farmer![*](Erigone; her dog Maera guided her to the spot where Icarius lay buried. He had been slain by drunken shepherds to whom he had given wine that Dionysus Thad taught him how to make. After her suicide Erigone became Virgo, and Maera, it would seem from Lucian’s xuvidiov, Procyon (Canis Minor). No doubt it is Momus’ indignation about the dog that accounts for his failure to mention Icarius’ introduction into the heavens as Bootes. ) And what is most ridiculous of all, Gods, even Erigone’s dog—that too he has brought up, so that the little maid shall not be distressed if she cannot have in heaven her pet, darling doggie! Does not all this look to you like insolence, impudence, and mockery? But let me tell you about others.

ZEUS Say nothing, Momus, about either Asclepius or Heracles, for I see where you are heading in your speech. As far as they are concerned, one of them is a doctor who cures people of their illnesses and is “as good as a host in himself,”[*](Iliad, XI, 514, alluding to Machaon. ) whilst Heracles, though my own son, purchased his immortality at the cost of many labours; so do not denounce them.

MOMUS I shall hold my tongue, Zeus, for your sake, although I have plenty to say. Indeed, if there were nothing else, they still carry the marks of fire![*](Heracles cremated himself, and Asclepius was struck by lightning. Cf. p. 6, n. 1. ) And if it were permissible to employ free speech about yourself, I should have plenty to say.

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ZEUS I assure you, about me it is quite permissible. But you are not prosecuting me as an alien, are you?

MOMUS Well, in Crete not only that may be heard, but they tell another story about you and show people atomb. However, I put no faith either in them or in the Achaeans of Aegium, who assert that you are a changeling.[*](Zeus was not only born in Crete, but buried there, in more than one place. His critics in Lucian several times refer to this fact (Timon, 4; Zeus Rants, 45). Lucian very likely means the place that was pointed out to R. Pashley in 1834 as the tomb of Zeus, on Mt. Juktas; see A. J. Cook’s Zeus, I, 157-163. The Achaean version of the birth of Zeus which made him out a changeling is not mentioned elsewhere, but plenty of places gave him other fathers than Cronus, which amounts to the same thing. )

But I do intend to speak of one thing that in my opinion ought by all means to be censured.

It was you, Zeus, who began these illegalities and caused the corruption of our body politic by cohabiting with mortal women and going down to visit them, now in one form, now in another. It has gone so far that we are afraid that someone may make a victim of you if he catches you when you are a bull, or that some goldsmith may work you up when you are gold, and instead of Zeus we may have you turning up as a necklace or a bracelet or an earring. However that may be, you have filled heaven with these—demigods! I do not care to put it otherwise. And it is a very ridiculous state of things when one suddenly hears that Heracles has been appointed a god, but Eurystheus, who used to order him about, is dead; and that the temple of Heracles, who was a slave, and the tomb of Eurystheus, his master, stand side by side; and again, that in Thebes Dionysus is a

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god, but his cousins Pentheus, Actaeon, and Learchus were of all mankind the most ill-fated.[*](All three were own cousins of Dionysus, being sons of other daughters of Cadmus; Pentheus of Agave, Actaeon of Autonoe, and Learchus of Ino. Learchus was killed by his father Athamas. )

From the moment that you, Zeus, once opened our doors to such as they and turned your attention to mortal women, everyone else has copied you, and not the male sex alone but—what is most unseemly—even the goddesses. Who does not know about Anchises, Tithonus, Endymion, Iasion, and the rest of them? So I think I shall omit those incidents, for it would take too long if I were to pass censure on them.

ZEUS Say nothing about Ganymede, Momus, for I shall be angry if you vex the little lad by disparaging his birth.

MOMUS Then am I not to speak of the eagle, either, and say that he too is in heaven, where he sits upon your royal sceptre and all but nests on your head, passing for a god?

Or must I omit him also, for the sake of Ganymede? But Attis at all events, Zeus, and Corybas[*](In Icaromenippus, 27 (II, 312) a similar list of “alien gods of doubtful status’’ is given, in which, besides Pan, Attis, and Sabazius, we find the Corybantes. For Lucian’s conception of them, see the note on The Dance, 8 (p. 220, n. 2). Here only one Corybas is remarked in the sacred precincts. Does Lucian think of him as that one who was slain by the others (Clem. Alex., Protr., II, 19), and so as the central figure of the cult ? ) and Sabazius[*](Sabazius was the centre of a wide-spread and important mystery-religion, which merged with that of Dionysus (Zagreus). He is frequently represented sitting in the palm of a great hand opened in a gesture like that of benediction (thumb and first two dingo extended), see Cook’s Zeus, I, 390, Fig. 296. Multitudes of attributes always surround him, and the bull, the ram, and the snake figured in his cult. On initiation, a snake was through the clothing of the initiate, and “snake through the bosom” is said to have been the pass-word (Clem. Alex., Protr., III, 15, 1). )—how did they get trundled in upon us?

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Or Mithras yonder, the Mede, with his caftan and his cap, who does not even speak Greek, so that he cannot even understand if one drinks his health? The result is that the Scythians—the Getae among them—seeing all this have told us to go hang, and now confer immortality on their own account and elect as gods whomsoever they will, in the selfsame way that Zamolxis, a slave, obtained fraudulent admission to the roster, getting by with it somehow or other.[*](Lucian recognises that the Getae were not Scythians but Thracians in Icaromenippus, 16, and that Zamolxis belongs to the Thracians in True Story, II, 17, and Zeus Rants, 44. On the other hand, the god is styled Scythian in The Scythian, 1 and 4, and in the passage before us, though he is ascribed to the Getae, they are represented as Scythian. Perhaps these two pieces are earlier than the others, and earlier than Tozaris, where Zamolxis is not mentioned. Zamolxis obtained his ‘fraudulent registration” by hiding in a cave and not appearing for four years, according to Herodotus (IV, 95). Strabo (VII, 5), who says that he was counsellor to the king, who connived at the fraud, adds that he was followed by a continuous succession of such gods; and to these Lucian must be alluding when he speaks of their electing gods. )

All that, however, is as nothing, Gods.—You there, you dog-faced, linen-vested Egyptian, who are you, my fine fellow, and how do you make out that you are a god, with that bark of yours?[*](Anubis. ) And with what idea does this spotted bull of Memphis[*](Apis. ) receive homage and give oracles and have prophets? I take shame to mention ibises and monkeys and billy-goats and other creatures far more ludicrous that somehow or other have been smuggled out of Egypt into heaven. How can you endure it, Gods, to see them worshipped as much as you, or even more? And you, Zeus, how can you put up with it when they grow ram’s horns upon you?[*](Zeus Ammon. )

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ZEUS All these points that you mention about the Egyptians are in truth unseemly. Nevertheless, Momus, most of them are matters of symbolism and one who is not an adept in the mysteries really must not laugh at them.

MOMUS A lot we need mysteries, Zeus, to know that gods are gods, and dogheads are dogheads!

ZEUS Never mind, I say, about the Egyptians. Some other time we shall discuss their case at leisure. Go on and name the others.

MOMUS Trophonius, Zeus, and (what sticks in my gorge beyond everything) Amphilochus, who, though the son of an outcast and matricide,[*](Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus; he slew his mother Eriphyle, fled from Argos in frenzy, and never returned. ) gives prophecies, the miscreant, in Cilicia, telling lies most of the time and playing charlatan for the sake of his two obols. That is why you, Apollo, are no longer in favour; at present, oracles are delivered by every stone and every altar that is drenched with oil and has garlands and can provide itself with a charlatan—of whom there are plenty. Already the statue of Polydamas the athlete heals those who have fevers in Olympia,

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and the statue of Theagenes does likewise in Thasos ;[*](Polydamas, a gigantic pancratiast, was said to have killed lions with his bare hands and stopped chariots at full speed by laying hold of them. Pausanias (VI, 5, 1) mentions his statue at Olympia, made by Lysippus, but does not speak of its healing the sick. But about the Thasian statue of Theagenes, who won 1400 crowns as boxer, cratiast, and runner, and was reputed to be a son of Heracles, we hear not only from Pausanias (VI, 11, 6-9) but from Oenomaus (in Euseb., Praep. Evang., V, 34, 6-9) and Dio Chrysostom in his Rhodiaeus (XXXI, 95-97). After his death, when an enemy whipped the statue at night, it fell on him and killed him; so it was tried for murder, and flung into the sea. Harvests then failed, and after the reason had been elicited from Delphi, the statue, miraculously recovered by fishermen in their net, was set up where it had stood before, and sacrifices were thereafter offered before it “as to a god.” Pausanias adds that he knows that Theagenes had many other statues both in Greece and in “barbarian” parts, and that he healed sicknesses and received honours from the natives of those places. A very similar tale about the statue of another Olympic victor, the Locrian Euthycles, previously known only from Oenomaus (ibid., 10-11), can now be traced to the Iambi of Callimachus (Diegeseis, ed. Vitelli-Norsa, i, 37-ii, 8). And in Lucian’s Lover of Lies, 18-20 (III, 346, ff.) there is an amusing account of activities imputed to the statue of Pellichus, a Corinthian general. ) they sacrifice to Hector in Troy and to Protesilaus on the opposite shore, in the Chersonese. So, ever since we became so numerous, perjury and sacrilege have been increasing, and in general they have despised us—quite rightly.

Let this suffice on the subject of those who are base-born and fraudulently registered. But there are many outlandish names that have come to my ears, of beings not to be found among us and unable to exist at all as realities; and over these too, Zeus, I make very merry. Where is that famous Virtue, and Nature, and Destiny, and Chance? They are unsubstantial, empty appellations, excogitated by those dolts, the philosophers. All the same, artificial as they are, they have so imposed upon the witless that nobody is willing to do as much as sacrifice to us, knowing that though he offer ten thousand hecatombs, nevertheless “Chance” will effect what is “fated” and what has been “spun” for every man from the beginning. So I should like

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to ask you, Zeus, if you have anywhere seen either Virtue or Nature or Destiny. I know that you too are always hearing of them in the discussions of the philosophers, unless you are deaf, so as not to be able to hear them screaming.

I still have plenty to say, but I will bring my speech to an end, for I notice that many are annoyed with me for my remarks, and are hissing, particularly those who have been touched to the quick by my frankness.

To conclude, then, with your consent, Zeus, I shall read a motion on this subject which has already been committed to writing.

ZEUS Read it, for not all your criticisms were unreasonable, and we must put a stop to most of this, so that it may not increase. Momus (reads) “With the blessing of Heaven! In a regular session of the assembly, held on the seventh of the month, Zeus presiding, Poseidon first vice-president, Apollo second vice-president, Momus, son of Night, recorder, the following resolution was proposed by Sleep :[*](Obtaining from fourth-century Athens a formula for decrees of the senate and people, Olympus has filled in the blanks as best it could. At Athens, the name of a ph le, or tribe, would go in the first blank of the preamble, as “exercising the prytany’’; but Ob ympus has no tribes, and anyhow Zeus should come first. So his name is set down there. The next two offices might now be crossed off; for as Zeus presides at assemblies, there is no function left for the proedros, or chairman of the board of presidents, and the office of epistatés, or chairman of the prytanies, is already filled, since Zeus can hardly be “exercising the prytany” in any other capacity. However, there are the blanks !—and Poseidon, second in the Olympian hierarchy, will do all the better for proedros if it is a sinecure, while the duties actually performed by Apollo as Zeus’ right-hand man and more or less of a factotum, are not too dissimilar to those of an Athenian epistatés in the fourth century B.o. These problems solved, the remaining blanks were easy to fill. )

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“WHEREAS many aliens, not only Greeks but barbarians, in nowise worthy of admission to our body politic, by obtaining fraudulent registration in one way or another and coming to be accounted gods have so filled heaven that our festal board is packed with a noisy rabble of polyglot flotsam; and WHEREas the ambrosia and the nectar have run low, so that a cup now costs a mina, on account of the vast number of drinkers; and wHereas in their boorishness they have thrust aside the ancient and genuine gods, have claimed precedence for themselves, contrary to all the institutions of our fathers, and want to be pre-eminently honoured on earth: therefore

“BE IT RESOLVED by the senate and the commons that a meeting of the assembly be convoked on Olympus at the time of the winter solstice; that seven gods of full standing be chosen as deputies, three to be from the old senate of the time of Cronus, and four from the Twelve, including Zeus; that these deputies before convening take the regular oath, invoking the Styx; that Hermes by proclamation assemble all who claim to belong to our body; that these present themselves with witnesses prepared to take oath, and with birth-certificates ; that they then appear individually, and the deputies after investigation of each case either declare them to be gods or send them down to their sepulchres and the graves of their ancestors; and that if any one of those who shall fail of approval and shall have been expelled once for all by the deputies be caught setting foot in heaven, he be thrown into Tartarus ;

“AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that each ply

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his own trade; that Athena shall not heal the sick or Asclepius give oracles or Apollo combine in himself so many activities; he shall select one and be either seer or singer or physician;

that the philosophers be warned not to make up empty names or talk nonsense about matters of which they know nothing;

that in the case of those who already have been vouchsafed temples or sacrifices, their images be pulled down and those of Zeus or Hera or Apollo or one of the others be substituted; but the city shall raise a funeral-mound for them and set a gravestone upon it instead of an altar; that if anyone shall fail to comply with this proclamation and shall be unwilling to appear before the deputies, judgement by default shall be rendered against him.” There you have the resolution.

ZEUS It is most equitable, Momus ; so let everyone who is in favour of the resolution hold up his hand—but no! I declare it carried, as those who will not vote for it will be the majority, I know. Well, you may go now; but when Hermes makes the proclamation, present yourselves, and let each of you bring unmistakable means of identification and clear proofs— his father’s name and his mother’s, why and how he became a god, and his tribe and clan. For if anyone shall fail to put all this in evidence, it will make no difference to the deputies that he has a huge temple on earth and that men believe him to be a god.