Lucian, Volume I

by Lucian of Samosata, A.M. Harmon (Translator)

Satire blends with comic art in Lucian's tales, fantasies, and dialogues. With ebullient wit he mocks teachers of literature, the various philosophical schools, popular religions, historians and writers, the Olympian gods, and the foibles of mortals. In The Dream he jocularly recounts his own career. Native of Samosata on the Euphrates, Lucian traveled widely in the Roman Empire as far as Gaul. His 80 extant works (published here in 8 volumes) offer insight on the intellectual world of the second century CE along with mischievous and sophisticated entertainment.

From Lucian comes a comic view of the Greek symposium, in his piece titled Carousal in Harmon's translation. The great satirist crowds into his dinner party Stoics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and Cynics‒but there is as much high-spirited clowning as philosophy to be relished here. This first of the eight-volume edition of Lucian contains fourteen other pieces, including one of the earliest examples of science fiction, A True Story, the tallest of tall stories about a voyage to the moon.

Genres: Classics

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 180

About the author

Lucian of Samosata was a Greek-educated Syrian rhetorician, and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.

Reviews

[John Isles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the selection of Lucian's satyrical sketches in Penguin Classics, but the works in Volume I of the Loeb set (in eight volumes) mostly aren't of the same standard. Some are juvenilia, some probably not even by Lucian, and some aren't satyrical. Still, there was interesting reading here, notably the first piece, "Phalaris," which imagines the famous cruel tyrant dedicating at Delphi, as a gift to Apollo, the brazen bull in which he was reputed to have roasted his victims, and the mock adventure saga "A True Story." I'm hoping to find his best work in the ensuing volumes!

[Alexander Rolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this volume mainly for A True Story, which was indeed fun. When visiting the Isle of the Blessed, it was satisfying to see the grifter Herodotus getting punished for lying.

The essay on Demonax was good too. (Perhaps some of you having children might want to revive that name.) Alexander Pope must have liked Demonax: "He considered that it is human to err, divine or all but divine to set right what has gone amiss."