Dialogi mortuorum
Lucian of Samosata
The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 1. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.
Menippus Now I wonder how it is that you two dead men have been honoured with temples and taken for prophets; those silly mortals imagine you are Gods.
Ampbilochus How can we help it, if they are fools enough to have such fancies about the dead?
Menippus Ah, they would never have had them, though, if you had not been charlatans in your lifetime, and pretended to know the future and be able to foretell it to your clients.
Trophonius Well, Menippus, Amphilochus can take his own line, if he likes; as for me, I am a Hero, and do give oracles to any one who comes down to me. It is pretty clear you were never at Lebadea, or you would not be so incredulous.
Menippus What do you mean? I must go to Lebadea, swaddle myself up in absurd linen, take a cake in my hand, and crawl through a narrow passage into a cave, before I could tell that you are a dead man, with nothing but knavery to differentiate
Trophonius He is half God, and half man,
Menippus So what is neither man (as you imply) nor God, is both at once? Well, at present what has become of your diviner half?
Trophonius He gives oracles in Boeotia.
Menippus What you may mean is quite beyond me; the one thing I know for certain is that you are dead—the whole of you.