Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches by Lucian of Samosata Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches by Lucian of Samosata. TimeSearch for Books and Writers by Bamber Gascoigne. Syrian-Greek rhetorician, pamphleteer, and satirist, famous for his humorous dialogues. Of the eighty works traditionally attributed to him, about ten are of doubtful authenticity, including one of the most famous, the short novel Lucius or the Ass . In the Byzantine world, Lucian was labelled as an Anti-Christ. He was also on the Catholic index of Forbidden Books. Lucian was born in Samosata, Commage, Syria (now Samsat in southeastern Turkey). Most of what we know about Lucian's life is derived from his own writings, which cannot always be taken at face value. However, in My Dream Lucian tells that he was apprenticed to his uncle, a stonecutter, after he had stopped going to school. Lucian had shown some talent in modelling cows, horses, and human figures from wax. The apprenticeship lasted one day because he managed to break a slab with his chisel. Lucian of Samosata lived under the Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and perhaps Pertinax. His mother-tongue was probably Aramaic, but as a young man he spent some years in Ionian, acquiring a Greek literary education. He also studied rhetoric and wandered through western Asia as a traveling lecturer. These experiences formed a basis for his later skeptical attitude toward travellers' tales. He taught in Italy and Spain held also a teaching post in Gaul (France). Possibly he lived some time in Rome and worked later unsuccessfully as a lawyer at Antioch in Syria. In the late '50 of the 2nd century, Lucian settled in Athens. During this period he wrote prolifically. How to Write History , Dialogues of the Dead , True History , and Timon are some of these works. Most of his writings were produced between 160 and 185, but it is difficult to date them accurately. Lucian also watched the Olympic Games, mentioning them in his Anacharsis dialogue. Fifty or so epigrams are attributed to Lucian in the Anthologia Graeca , a collection of poems from the Ancient and Byzantine periods of Greek Literature. As a writer, Lucian was a skillful, sophisticated craftman, who criticized the follies and foibles of his own day. The knowledge he had acquired in the various professions he utilized in his writings. He blended prose and verse, high and low styles, moving easily from the Platonic dialogue to Menippean satire within the same work. His basic invention was to transform a serious philosophical dialogue into a vehicle of mockery. Lucian himself appeared in a number of his dialogues under the disguise of Lycinus or the Syrian. In one text he mentions that he suffered from gout in his old age. For a period, Lucian was employed in Alexandria by the imperial administration. His duties included "the initiation of court cases and their arrangement, the recording of all that is done and said, guiding counsels in their speecher, keeping the clearest and most accurate copy of the governor's decision in all faithfulness and putting them on public record to be preserved for all time." He then returned to Athens c.175, after the prefect of Egypt was banished from his office. Lucien died c.200. According to a statement in Suidas , Lucien was torn to pieces by dogs, but it is supposed that this is a later fabrication due to Lucian's alleged hostility to Christianity. Lucian did not develop a philosophy of his own. He tended towards the Epicureans, but in general, he was more of a reporter and social critic than an analyst. Lucian satirized philosophy and all religions in several texts, including Icaromenippus , a dialogue, The Passing of Peregrinus , Of Sacrifice , Zeus Cross-Examined , and Influence of the Old Comedy Writers. Philopatris , a direct attack on Christianity, was long attributed to Lucian, but it probably dates from the time of Julian the Apostate (cAD 331-363). Lucian described the Christians as those "poor wretches [who] have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody, most of them." ( Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus by W. H. C. Frend, 1965, p. 273) The Passing of Peregrinus tells of the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus, who was suspected of parricide (Lucian says that Peregrinus strangled his father, "not wishing him to live beyond sixty years of age") and escaped to Palestine. There he joined a Christian community, traveled around preachimng platitudes, had numerous followers, and eventually decided to roast himself at Olympic Games – "not undeservedly, by Heracles, if it is right for parricides and for atheists to suffer for their hardinesses," noted Lucian, who claimed that he was at Olympia at the time, and witnessed the suicide. After Peregrinus was "carbonified," rumours that he has risen from the dead began to spread. Lucian's account of the philosopher's life is mostly based on gossips and anecdotes. Nevertheless, it gives an intriguing insight into Christianity through pagan eyes. Peregrinus was also mentioned in a negative way by Christian authors. Lucian took the side reason against superstition and mysticism, he mocked authors who used archaic style, ridiculed charlatans and philosophers, and parodied the fantastic and fanciful travel stories of earlier writers, such as the Greek historian Herodotus. In How to Write History , a treatise on historiography, which dates around 166-68, Lucian makes a distinction between history and rhetoric, and emphasizes truthfulness – "The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened." Lucian's down-to-earth approach is still valid and advises excellent, although the work is out of date for practical purposes. True History (Alethes historia), in which the narrator visits the Moon, Lucian satirized the myths of Homer and utopian societies, starting the story by declaring that "as I have no truth to put on record, having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood – but falsehood of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you are to expect – that I am a liar. " The notes that the female sex is unknown; men marry men and reproduce unisexually. "But what is far more surprising, there is amongst them a singular species of men, called Dendrites, and which are produced in this manner. They plant the testicle of a man into the ground ; from whence by insensible degrees springs up a large fleshy tree, having the form of a phallus, with branches and leaves, and bearing an acorn-like fruit an ell in length." Upon returning back to Earth, the narrator with his party is swallowed by a gigantic whale. He manages to escape and has then adventures on islands. Also in the dialogue Icaromenippus Lucian's hero acquires a pair of wings and flies to the Moon. Lucius or the Ass (Loukios, e Onos), a comic novel, has been attributed to Lucian, but not without doubts. He may have drawn upon the same text as Apuleius's more famous story The Golden Ass , written in the mid-2nd century AD . Onos tells of a young man, a certain Lucius of Patrae, who is turned into a donkey. Passing from owner to owner, he suffers much before he becomes again a human being. The epitomist of the text, called nowadays as Pseudo-Lucian, reduced it by about one-third of its original lenght. A tenth-century Byzantine chronicle explained that, that the nickname for Lucian was "the Blasphemer" because "in his dialogues he went so far as to ridicule religious discourse". ( The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey, 2017, p. 42) In spite of Lucian's anti-Christian reputation, his writings survived the bonfires of the Church. In the 15th and 16th century Lucien enjoyed a wide popularity and his works were printed in many editions, such as Palinurus , printed in 1,500 copies at Avignon in 1497. One edition was published in small, portable form, so that it could be read during long horseback rides, or even in the middle of a session of the city council, as a Venetian senator did according to an anecdote. Lucian's treatise De Calumnia (About not being too quick to believe a calumny), in which he descibed in detail a painting by Apelles, inspired Botticelli's La Calunnia di Apelle (the Calumny of Apelles , c.1494-1495). This tempera painting shows several allegorical figures grouped against a backround of classica arcades. Calumny is portrayed as an extraordinarily beautiful lady carrying a lighted torch. The Christian humanist Erasmus (c.1469-1536) was one of the first to translate Lucian from Greek into Latin. During his stay in England in 1505 and 1506 he translated ten of Lucian's dialogues, in Flocence he translated eighteen short dialogues, and then additional eight treatises. Lucian's influence is seen in Saint Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Rabelais's Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534), Cyrano de Bergerac's (1619-55) L'Autre Monde , Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), in the works of Voltaire (1694-1778), and S. Butler's Erewhon (1872). Samuel Briscoe said in the 1711 English translation, that Lucian "has been the Darling Pleasure of Men of sense in every Nation." Selected works : Epistolae, ca. 1475 Luciani Palinurus. Luciani Scipio Romanus. Luciani Heroica in amorem. Luciani Asinus aureus. Bruti Romani Epistole. Diogenis Cynici Epistole, 1497 Luciani opuscula, 1516 (Erasmo Roterodamo interprete) Lvciani Piscator, sev Reuiuiscentes . Bilibaldo Pirckheymero . interprete . Nurenbergae, 1517 Luciani opera omnia, 1619 (8 vols.) Certaine Select Dialogues of Lucian: Together With His True Historie, 1634 (tr. Francis Hickes and Jasper Mayne) Lucian's works, 1684-1685 (8 vols., translated by F. Spence) The Works of Lucian, 1710- 1711 (tr. from the Greek, by several eminent hands . with the life of Lucian, by John Dryden) Dialogues of Lucian from the Greek, 1774-1798 (5 vols., tr. John Carr) The Works of Lucian from the Greek, 1780 (ed. Thomas Franklin) The Select Dialogues of Lucian, 1789 (ed. Edward Murray) Lucian of Samosata, 1820 (by William Tooke) Luciani Samosatensis Opera, 1829 (4 vols.) Lucianus, 1886-99 (5 vols., ed. Julius Sommerbrodt) Lucian's Dialogues, 1888 (tr. Howard Williams) Selections from Lucian, 1892 (tr. Emily James Smith) Lucian's True History, 1894 (tr. Francis Hickes) Selections from Lucian, 1896 (tr. Demarchus Clariton Brown) Lucius the Ass, 1902 (with notices by Paul Louis Courier and A. J. Pons, and illustrations by M. Poirson) Lucian; Selected Writings, 1905 (ed. Francis Greenleaf Allinson) The Works of Lucian of Samosata, 1905 (4 vols., ed. Henry W. and Francis G. Fowler) Lucian, 1913-1967 (8 vols., tr. A.M. Harmon) Opera, 1953-67 (8 vols., with an English translation by A.M. Harmon, K. Kilburn, and M.D. Macleod) True History and Lucius or the Ass, 1958 (tr. Paul Turner; illustrated by Hellmuth Weissenborn) Satirical Sketches, 1961 (tr. Paul Turner) Selected Satires of Lucian, 1962 (edited and translated by Lionel Casson) Selected Works, 1965 (translated, with an introd. and notes, by Bryan P. Reardon) Luciani Opera, 1972-87 (4 vols., edited by Matthew Donald Macleod) Seventy Dialogues, 1977 (introd. and commentary by Harry L. Levy) Lucian: Selections, 1988 (ed. K.C. Sidwell) On the Syrian Goddess, 2003 (tr. J.L. Lightfoot) Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches, 2004 (tr. Keith Sidwell) Selected Dialogues: A New Translation, 2006 (tr. C.D.N. Costa) Lucian: A Selection, 2008 (edited by Neil Hopkinson) Selected Dialogues, 2009 (translated with an introduction and notes by C.D.N. Costa) Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. 2008-2020. The Cynic Philosophers. From their founding in the fifth century BC and for over 800 years, the Cynic philosophers sought to cure humanity of greed and vice with their proposal of living simply. They guaranteed happiness to their adherents through freedom of speech, poverty, self-sufficiency and physical hardiness. In this fascinating and completely new collection of Cynic writing through the centuries, from Diogenes and Hipparchia, to Lucian and the Roman emperor Julian, the history and experiences of the Cynic philosophers are explored to the full. Robert Dobbin's introduction examines the public image of the Cynics through the ages, as well as the philosophy's contradictions and how their views on women were centuries ahead of their time. This edition also includes notes on the text, chronology, glossary and suggested further reading. Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches. Described by a later Greek historian as "a man seriously committed to raising a laugh", Lucian exulted in the exposure of absurdity and the puncturing of pretension, and was capable of finding a comic angle on almost any subject. In this selection we see him conversing with his literary enemies, railing against hypocrisy and the vanity of human wealth and power, and taking a wry look at the power of lust and the unsatisfactory nature of deviant sexual practices. chronolit. 4000 years of classic literature …….. one book at a time. 206. Chattering Courtesans and other sardonic sketches by Lucian (c. 165-175 AD) Plot: A range of short sketches, dialogues and stories, including the first science fiction story ( A True History ) and praise for a fly. My copy is the Penguin Black classic translated by Keith Sidwell (ISBN 0140447024). My thoughts: Sometimes cheery and gossipy, sometimes just a little too preachy, Lucian’s stories are generally fun. My favourites were not the courtesan dialogues but a selection of the other tales. The Journey down to Hades. A tyrant poisoned by a rival is dragged down to Hades alongside more common corpses, trying everything to resist and return to the surface. I particularly liked how the loading of 1,004 souls into Charon’s boat is accomplished in a logical and organized way – no First Class or frequent flyer early boarding here. Babies first, then the elderly (plucked-ripe “raisins”), then the wounded, the suicides from love, the ones died fighting each other over a monarchy, the ones put to death by the courts, the ones killed by brigands and shipwrecks, those that died of fever (and their doctor), and finally the philosopher and the tyrant, still trying to bribe and beg his way out of the trip. “Let me finish my house first … let me tell my wife where I buried the treasure … let me run away, I’ll give you a thousand talents of stamped gold … the city wall and dockyards aren’t finished … let me live long enough to conquer the Pisidians, impose tribute on the Lydians, and to set up an enormous monument to myself … I’ll even give you my lover as a hostage instead of me” (pages 97-98) Praising a Fly . I can imagine a fiendish English teacher setting this as an assignment : Write a 4 page eulogy praising the fly. But would students be able to describe her flight as “a graceful curve to whatever part of the air she has set her sights on … accompanied by a melodic sound [of] sweet clarity” (page 249) A True History. As a long term science fiction fan, I was looking forward most to this tale. Reminiscent of some of the more outlandish descriptions of people and animals of faraway lands that Herodotus claimed as well as the travels of Gulliver, we have Lucian and his shipmates seduced by vine women, having their ship sucked upwards in a cyclone and dumped on the Moon, whose inhabitants are at war with the Sun’s armies. Returning to Earth, they and their ship are swallowed whole by a giant whale, escaping to the Island of the Dead Heroes, and facing many other weird and wonderful peoples including the Assleg women, the Corkfeet people, the Pumpkin Pirates, and the men who ply the oceans using their genitals as sails. Personal rating: overall a 5/10. Other reading: Does the Doctor Who Mr Men series count? Lucian. Lucian of Samosata ( / ˈ l uː ʃ ən , ˈ l uː s i ən / ; Ancient Greek: Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς , Latin: Lucianus Samosatensis ; c. AD 125 – after AD 180) was a rhetorician [1] and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature. Although he wrote solely in Greek, mainly Attic Greek, he was ethnically Assyrian. [2] [3] Lucian claimed to be a native speaker of a "barbarian tongue" (Double Indictment, 27) which was most likely Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic. [4] Contents. Biography. Few details of Lucian's life can be verified with any degree of accuracy. He claimed to have been born in Samosata, in the former kingdom of Commagene, which had been absorbed by the Roman Empire and made part of the province of Syria. In his works, Lucian refers to himself as an "Assyrian", [5] and "barbarian", perhaps indicating "he was from the Semitic and not the imported Greek population" of Samosata. [6] There are more than eighty surviving works attributed to him – declamations, essays both laudatory and sarcastic, satiric epigrams, and comic dialogues and symposia with a satirical cast, studded with quotations in alarming contexts and allusions set in an unusual light, designed to be surprising and provocative. His name added lustre to any entertaining and sarcastic essay: more than 150 surviving manuscripts attest to his continued popularity. The first printed edition of a selection of his works was issued at Florence in 1499. His best known works are A True Story (a romance, patently not "true" at all, which he admits in his introduction to the story), and Dialogues of the Gods ( Θεῶν διάλογοι ) and Dialogues of the Dead ( Νεκρικοὶ Διάλογοι ). Lucian was trained as a rhetorician, a vocation where one pleads in court, composing pleas for others, and teaching the art of pleading. Lucian's practice was to travel about, giving amusing discourses and witty lectures improvised on the spot, somewhat as a rhapsode had done in declaiming poetry at an earlier period. In this way Lucian travelled through Ionia and mainland Greece, to Italy and even to Gaul, and won much wealth and fame. Lucian admired the works of Epicurus, for he breaks off a witty satire against Alexander of Abonoteichus, who burned a book of Epicurus, to exclaim: What blessings that book creates for its readers and what peace, tranquillity, and freedom it engenders in them, liberating them as it does from terrors and apparitions and portents, from vain hopes and extravagant cravings, developing in them intelligence and truth, and truly purifying their understanding, not with torches and squills [i. e. sea onions] and that sort of foolery, but with straight thinking, truthfulness and frankness. [7] Works. There are 70 surviving works attributed to Lucian [8] He wrote in a variety of styles which included comic dialogues, rhetorical essays and prose fiction. Lucian was also one of the earliest novelists in Western civilization. In A True Story , a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodies some of the fantastic tales told by Homer in the Odyssey and also the not so fantastic tales from the historian Thucydides. [9] [10] He anticipated "modern" fictional themes like voyages to the moon and Venus, extraterrestrial life and wars between planets, nearly two millennia before Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. His novel is widely regarded as an early, if not the earliest science fiction work. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Lucian also wrote a satire called The Passing of Peregrinus , [16] in which the lead character, Peregrinus Proteus, takes advantage of the generosity of Christians. This is one of the earliest surviving pagan perceptions of Christianity. His Philopseudes ( Φιλοψευδὴς ἤ Ἀπιστῶν , "Lover of Lies or Cheater") is a frame story which includes the original version of The Sorcerer's Apprentice . In his Symposium ( Συμπόσιον ), far from Plato's discourse, the diners get drunk, tell smutty tales and behave badly. The Macrobii ( Μακρόβιοι , "long-livers"), which is devoted to longevity, has been attributed to Lucian, although it is generally agreed that he was not the author. [17] It gives some mythical examples like that of Nestor who lived three generations or Tiresias, the blind seer of Thebes, who lived six generations. It tells about the Seres (Chinese) "who are said to live 300 years" or the people of Athos, "who are also said to live 130 years". Most of the examples of "real" men lived between 80 and 100 years, but ten cases of alleged centenarians are given. It also gives some advice concerning food intake and moderation in general. Lucian's Kataplous or Downward Journey was deathbed-reading for David Hume and the source of Nietzsche's Übermensch or Overman . [18] Pseudo-Lucian. There is debate over the authorship of some works transmitted under Lucian's name, such as De Dea Syria ("On the Syrian goddess"), the Amores and the Ass . These are usually not considered genuine works of Lucian and are normally cited under the name of "Pseudo-Lucian". The Ass ( Λούκιος ἢ ῎Oνος ) is probably a summarized version of a story by Lucian and contains largely the same basic plot elements as The Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses ) of Apuleius, but with fewer inset tales and a different ending. Language. Lucian wrote in the Atticizing Greek popular during the Second Sophistic. He further imitated Herodotus's Ionic dialect so successfully in his work The Syrian Goddess that some scholars refuse to recognize him as the author. [19]