Quomodo historia conscribenda sit

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 6. Kilburn, K., translator. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.

Another, renowned for his powerful eloquence, was also like Thucydides or a little better. He described all cities, mountains, plains, and rivers in the most detailed and striking way, as he thought. May the Averter of Evil turn his detail and vigour against the enemy, so much frigidity was there in it, worse than Caspian snow and Celtic ice! For example, he only just got through his description of the emperor’s shield in a whole book, with its Gorgon on the boss, her eyes of blue, white, and black, her girdle like the rainbow, the ringlets and curls of her serpents. The trousers of Vologesus and the bit of his horse—Heavens! how many thousands of words on each, and his descriptions of Osroes’ hair as he swam across the Tigris, and the cave where he fled for safety, with its jungle of ivy, myrrh, and laurel making it completely

v.6.p.31

dark. Think how essential this is to history: without it we should not have known what happened there!

Because of weakness in matters of importance or ignorance of what to say, they turn to this sort of description of scenery and caves; when they chance on a host of great doings they are like a newly-rich servant who has just inherited his master’s fortune: he knows neither how to dress nor how to take his meal in the proper way: no, he plunges in, when for instance birds and pork and hares are put before him, stuffing himself with a soup or kippers until he bursts from eating. Well, this man I mentioned described incredible wounds and monstrous deaths, how one man was wounded in the big toe and died on the spot, and how Priscus the general just gave a shout and twenty-seven of the enemy fell dead. And in the number slain he even contradicted the officers’ despatches with his false figures: at Europus, he said, the enemy lost 70,236 killed, while the Romans lost just two and had nine wounded. I do not think anyone in his senses would accept that.

There is another not unimportant matter: because he is an out-and-out Atticist and has purified his speech down to the last syllable, he thought fit to change the Latin names and use Greek forms—Kronios for Saturninus, Phrontis for Fronto, Titanios for Titianus, and others much more ridiculous.

v.6.p.33

Again, concerning the death of Severianus, this same man wrote that all the others had been deceived in supposing he perished by the sword—he died by fasting because he thought this the most painless way of dying. He was unaware that the whole business only took, say, three days while those who keep away from food generally last a week—unless one assumes that Osroes was standing about waiting for Severianus to die from hunger and for that reason did not attack during the week.