Lucian and His Satiric Romances: The True History and Lucias or Ass
Last Updated August 12, 2024.
[In the following excerpt from a work originally published in 1943, Haight discusses Lucian's style and use of parody in his True History.]
… Gildersleeve was probably right in calling the True History "a comic sequel to a brilliant essay entitled 'How to write History.'"29 The traditional manuscript order which places the True History after How History Should Be Written seems so aptly prompted by Lucianic irony. For this romance in two books is not history at all and has nothing of Lucian's primary requirement for history, that it should be true! It is a work of pure imagination, one of the earliest accounts of fictitious voyages and as such is part of the great tradition from the Odyssey to Gulliver's Travels.30 Lucian's preface explains both the nature of the piece and his reasons for writing it.31
The True History like many good stories is told in the first person by Lucian himself. The author, moreover, preludes and interrupts the narrative to get in direct touch with his reader. In his introduction, he states that his purpose in writing is to furnish to students some reading that will give relaxation, but at the same time "a little food for thought." The story is bound to charm, Lucian thinks, because of the novelty of the subject, the humor of the plan, the plausible lying involved and the comical parodies of such authors as Ctesias, lambulus, and Homer in his Odyssey. Lucian confesses to being a liar with the best of them, but affirms that his lying is unique in being honest because he admits it.
"Be it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them."32
In spite of this confession, Lucian here and there in his story tries to create an atmosphere of veracity by protestations of it. As he never saw the Corn Sparrow forces or the Crane Knights, he does not venture to relate the marvellous and incredible stories told about them.33 When he describes the magic mirror over a well in the Moon which furnished him television of his family and country he says that disbelievers by going there will find he tells the truth.34 In the Island of the Wicked, Lucian finds all liars, both those who had told lies on earth or written them, among the latter Ctesias and Herodotus. "On seeing them," he says, "I had good hopes for the future, for I have never told a lie that I know of."35 The last sentence of the romance is: "What happened in the other world I shall tell you in the succeeding books."36 This, a Greek scholiast comments, is the greatest lie of all!
Now after having seen what a wag Lucian is from his own words, we must decide how we are going to take him. Are we to seek in him relaxation and entertainment (the gift of all true romance) or are we going to marshal our "little learning" to meet his and study all his sources, his parodies of historians and philosophers, or search for allegories in his fantastic worlds? The happy way will be along the path of the golden mean. Gildersleeve put up a sign-board to it and inscribed directions for future travellers.
"To enjoy the show properly, it is far better for the reader to give himself up to this play of Lucian's fancy than to endeavor to unriddle whatever satire of contemporary literature may lie concealed in its allegory … There may be profound meaning in the war which breaks out between the Sunburghers under Phaethon, and the Moonburghers under Endymion, which begins with the attempt of the Moonburghers to found a colony on the desert planet of Lucifer, and which ends with the victory of the Sunburghers, Lucifer, being declared common property and the vanquished compelled to pay an annual tribute of ten thousand amphoreis of dew. But so elastic are all such allegories that they can be stretched to fit anything, and the war of these Heliotes and Selenites would answer to describe the conflict between orthodoxy and rationalism, and Lucifer would stand for the coming man. But how much better to look with childish interest on the marshalling of Horsevultures and Chickpeashooters and Garlickfighters and Flea-archers and Wind-runners, and to watch the huge spiders spin their web from the moon to Lucifer."37
So after realizing that we too may visit the Isles of the Blessed and the Wicked, may soar up to Aristophanes' Cloudcuckooland or dive under the sea in the brother of Jonah's whale, or see Sinbad's roc, let us begin at the beginning. Let the lights go out and the curtain go up. Let us watch breathlessly an ancient Walt Disney fantasy rush across the screen. The very names of countries and peoples add to the excitement as the panorama unrolls. And so vivid are Lucian's descriptions that as in all good movies soon we find ourselves participating in his adventures.…
This review of the two books of Lucian's True History reveals at once its startling differences from the other Greek romances of the early Empire. Romantic love does not figure in it. Religion has little or no place in it. Adventures are its bones and sinews. These adventures though described realistically are all figments of the imagination, explorations of the Wonderful Things beyond Thule as much as those of Antonius Diogenes must have been. The coloring of the pictures is an amazing mixture of realism and fantasy. The veracity of sense impressions almost converts doubting Thomases. Lucian comes to seem no mean rival of Herodotus, the Father of Lies. Only occasionally some satiric laughter betrays him.
It is perhaps easier for twentieth century readers to accept his wonders than it was for his contemporaries of the second century. Science has developed so many of his imaginative forecasts. The monstrous footprints of Hercules and Dionysus might be rock-prints of dinosaurs. The plunging whale is a submarine. His ship lifting from the ocean to sail through the air has become the hydroplane. His island galleys bearing one hundred and twenty men each are our battleships. The Cloud Centaurs who fight in the air are our aviators. Arctic explorers have lived in huts made of ice-blocks. Ice-sailing is a recognized winter sport. Clothing is made not of glass or bronze, but of cellulose and steel. Removable eyes suggest spectacles, contact lenses and field-glasses. The Cork-footed Men must have resembled surf riders. And the magic mirror over the well anticipated the perforated sphere of television.
But his contemporaries had the advantage of us in recognizing Lucian's sources and parodies more readily than we can. For us, Antonius Diogenes, Ctesias and Iambulus are lost. Yet Photius records that the romance of Antonius Diogenes, The Wonders beyond Thule, was the chief source of Lucian's True History. So many, however, are the sources which Lucian used to forward his avowed purpose of furnishing relaxation accompanied by some learning, that scholars have busied themselves for years tracing parallels with Greek and Latin authors.38 Allinson remarks wisely: "In general, it seems safe to conclude that Lucian regarded the writings of predecessors and contemporaries as an open quarry from which he first built up his own style and then picked out material to imbed, with an artist's skill, in the parti-coloured mosaic of his satire."39
Some idea of Lucian's parody of his sources may be gained, even though Antonius Diogenes is lost, from his incidental flings at great Greeks and from his constant references to Homer which are a mixture of admiration and irony. So when he saw Cloudcuckooland he remembered Aristophanes the poet, "a wise and truthful man whose writings are distrusted without reason."40 On the Island of the Blessed he did not find Plato for he preferred to live in the city of his imagination under his own constitution and laws. Yet he might well have been in Elysium for the inhabitants are most Platonic in sharing their wives.41 The solemn treaty which ended the wars between the Men of the Sun and the Men of the Moon has a comical resemblance to the treaty between Athens and Sparta which Thucydides records though it is signed by Fireman, Hotman, and Burner, by Nightman, Moonman and Allbright.42
Herodotus comes in for more imitation, for he furnishes stories of ants bigger than foxes,43 of dog-headed men,44 of men who feed on odors,45 of a feast of lanterns in Egypt,46 of a floating island,47 of the sea freezing,48 of a breeze that bears the perfume of Arabia.49 But when Lucian solemnly imitates these exaggerations, we feel he has his tongue in his cheek and our suspicion is confirmed when he consigns Ctesias and Herodotus to the limbo of Liars in the Island of the Wicked.50
Lucian's treatment of Homer shows his most genial irony. In his preface he makes Homer's Odysseus the guide and teacher of all historians of imaginary travels, Odysseus "who tells Alcinous and his court about winds in bondage, one-eyed men, cannibals and savages; also about animals with many heads, and transformations of his comrades wrought with drugs," and with such marvels "humbugged the illiterate Phaeacians."51 But in the Island of the Blessed, Homer is the shade in whose talk Lucian most delights. Homer indeed is most affable in discussing all the literary problems of his epics, especially since he had just won a lawsuit in which Thersites accused him of libel, through the aid of his lawyer Odysseus.52 Homer as a shade is still writing for when there was war in heaven, he produced a new epic about the battle of the shades of the heroes,53 which Lucian unfortunately lost on the way home, and on Lucian's departure Homer composed a commemorative epigram which described him as dear to the blessed gods.54
Lucian introduces Homer's characters into his scenes. Achilles is one of the most honored heroes on the Island of the Blessed, serving as joint judge with Theseus at the Games of the Dead.55 Helen is the leading lady in the court-room scene where Rhadamanthus had to decide whose wife she should be in Elysium. She has forgiven Stesichorus for saying she caused the Trojan War.56 But she creates a new scandal by trying to desert Menelaus again in an elopement with Scintharus' son.57 Calypso on receiving Odysseus' letter from Lucian's hand weeps as she reads that he always regretted giving up his life with her, and then with true feminine curiosity asks how Penelope is looking now and whether she is as wise as Odysseus used to boast. Lucian made such replies as he thought would gratify her!58
Minor episodes are reminiscent of the Odyssey. Rhadamanthus gives Lucian a talisman of mallow as Hermes gave Odysseus the moly.59 To the Land of Dreams Lucian must erect four gates in place of Homer's two, one of horn, one of ivory.60 And the Singing Sirens that tried to beguile Odysseus have been metamorphosed into fair young ladies in long chitons which conceal the legs of she-asses.61 But whatever changes are made in the source-material taken from the Odyssey, Lucian's gentle raillery does not hide his admiration of great Homer. He gives the lie to the myth that Homer was blind.62 And in the contest of the poets at the Games of the Dead in the Island of the Blessed, he ironically makes Hesiod the victor though he affirms that in truth Homer was by far the best of poets.
Lucian's style in his True History illustrates many of his own criteria for writing history. The short preface is in proportion to the short two-book True History. The narrative is concise, rapid, lucid and shows consistent progress, one event following naturally and quickly upon another without extravagant use of details. The few speeches are short, lively and suited to the character of the speaker. The descriptions are realistic and pointed. Extraordinary stories are told simply with an appearance of veracity.
A few typical elements of the Greek Romances appear in the True History. There is a suggestion of a courtroom scene where Rhadamanthus judges Helen's accomplices in escape. One letter is inserted, Odysseus' to Calypso, for the purpose of ironic satire of Homeric characters. An inscription on bronze is discovered and a laudatory couplet in hexameter is composed and inscribed on stone. But love and religion, the commonest themes of the Greek Romances, are eliminated from this tale of marvellous adventures.
Satire though this story is, it ranks easily first among imaginary voyagings both in fantasy and style. In his narration Lucian pours all his spirit, his liveliness of observation, his brilliant imagination, his vivacious wit. His own enjoyment in his facile, marvellous inventions is contagious. As he rushes his breathless readers over the earth, through the air, under the sea, as he introduces us to innumerable natural phenomena and monstrous beings, he convinces us that this world of fantasy is a real world. He has made many others wish to record similar travels, for the True History is the model of all those imaginary voyages with which Rabelais, Cyrano de Bergerac, Swift, Voltaire and others amused their contemporaries. No work of Lucian found so many imitators as this.63
The readers of Lucian's True History on finishing it feel that they have drunk with him more from his eternal springs of joy and laughter than from his irony, in fact that his irony gives only a few drops of angostura bitters to the heady cocktails of his wit. And at the end the readers of this romance are ready today to salute the shade of Lucian as Andrew Lang did:64
"In what bower, oh Lucian, of your rediscovered Islands Fortunate are you now reclining; the delight of the fair, the learned, the witty, and the brave? …
"There, among the vines that bear twelve times in the year, more excellent than all the vineyards of Touraine, while the song-birds bring you flowers from vales enchanted, and the shapes of the Blessed come and go, beautiful in wind-woven raiment of sunset hues; there, in a land that knows not age, nor winter, midnight, nor autumn, nor noon, where the silver twilight of summer-dawn is perennial, where youth does not wax spectre-pale and die; there, my Lucian, you are crowned the Prince of the Paradise of Mirth."…
Notes
29 … Basil L. Gildersleeve, Essays and Studies, Baltimore, 1890, p. 316.
30 See Philip Babcock Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction, New York, 1941.
31 A secondary Preface to Book II may be found in Babble Beforehand: Dionysus. In it Lucian speaks of a literary novelty he is producing under the influence of Dionysus and Silenus, an old man's lengthy babbling.
32 I. 4. The translations of the True History are from A. M. Harmon, Lucian, I, 247-357 in The Loeb Classical Library.
33 I. 13.
34 I. 26.
35 II. 31.
36 II. 47.
37 Gildersleeve, op. cit., pp. 318-19.
38 See E. Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, Leipzig, 1914, pp. 204-209; 242-50, 260 ff.; C. S. Jerram, Luciani Vera Historia, Oxford, 1887, I, 120 and passim; H. W. L. Hime, Lucian the Syrian Satirist, London, 1900, app. pp. 91-95; F. W. Householder, Jr., Literary Quotation and Allusion in Lucian, New York, 1941.
39 F. G. Allinson, Lucian Satirist and Artist, Boston, 1926, p. 123.
40 I. 29.
41 II. 17 and 19.
42 I 20, Thuc. V. 18.
43 I. 16, Her. III. 102.
44 I. 16, Her. IV. 191.
45 I. 23, Her. I. 202; IV. 75.
46 I 29, Her. II. 62.
47 I. 40, Her. II. 156.
48 II. 2, Her. IV. 28.
49 II. 5, Her. III. 113.
50 II. 31.
51 I. 3.
52 II. 20.
53 II. 24.
54 II. 28.
55 II. 22.
56 II, 15.
57 II. 25-26.
58 1I. 35-36.
59 II. 28, Odys. X. 302-306.
60 II. 33, Odys. XIX. 562-67.
61 II 46, Odys. XII. 37-200.
62 II. 20.
63 See M. Croiset, Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres de Lucien, Paris, 1882 C. XII, "La fantaisie chez Lucien"; and F. G. Allinson, op. cit., passim.
64 Andrew Lang, Letters to Dead Authors, New York, 1893, pp. 53-54.…
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