One of the most famous of Lucian's essays describes the petty miseries of the educated Greek who entered the service of one of the great Roman families as tutor. Toward the close of his life he himself accepted a lucrative post in the Roman administration of Egypt. A charm ing apology explains the inconsistency, or rather explains that there is none.
Of Lucian as a literary artist there can be but one opinion. He is one of the world's great est writers of prose. Ilis Greek syntax will not bear the microscope of the professional gram marian. but for literary purposes he writes cor rect enough Attic. And his command of the resources of what was to him a dead language is amazing. He has every word and phrase of Plato, Aristophanes, and Demosthenes at his pen's end, and for purposes of literary allusion is master of all Greek literature and history. But he uses this scholarship as an artist not as a pedant. He describes and narrates with incomparable vividness and vivacity, and his in genuity, fancy, fertility of invention, and inex haustible variety in vocabulary, allusion, and turn of idiomatic phrase never allow the atten tion to flag. Estimates of Lucian as a man and a thinker will depend on the philosophy of the critic. Lucian's temper is essentially negative and destructive. We may plead that he was a satirist and that, with the exception of Chris tianity. which it was impossible for him to esti mate, he mocked only at folly or superstition. We may add that his denials imply a very strong positive belief in common sense, common honesty, good taste, and the great tradition of Greek art and literature. But to most readers this will seem a very small residuum of positive faith and enthusiasm among so many negations. Espe
cially will Lucian be suspect to all those who take metaphysics seriously, or who, with Bacon, had rather believe all the fables of the Talmud than risk rejecting the kernel with the shell. The religion at which he mocked was either the outworn Hellenic mythology or the degrading Oriental superstitions which were competing for its place. The philosophers whom lie satirized were unworthy successors of Plato and Zeno. But the Hermotimus (well paraphrased in an interesting chapter of Pater's Marius) shows that his skepticism went deeper. and that he had systematically closed his mind against all attempts of either philosophy or religion to tran scend the world of sense and common sense. Renan praises him as the one man who in an age when even 1\larcus Aurelius coquetted with superstition remained unaffected by the taint. We may go further and say that there is no other example of a great writer (in contradis tinction to a mere thinker) so utterly undis turbed by any visitings of vague yearnings. mis givings, sudden touches, thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls. There is a certain hard ness, his warmest admirers must admit, in the brilliance of Lucian. He lacks the natural, human touch.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Lucian is generally read in the Bibliography. Lucian is generally read in the convenient three-volume Teuhner text. edited by Jacohitz, who also edited the chief annotated edition (Leipzig. 1836-111. The Seic•ted 7'rons lotions by Emily James Smith (Harpers) are eminently readable. Professor Gildersleeve. in Essays and Studies, devotes a witty and enter taining chapter to Lucian; while Croiset's Essai sur lu rie et les (Purees de Lucien (Paris. ISS'2) contains the fullest and best exposition and criticism.