Many of Lucian's dialogues are enlargements of the techniques of the 'miniatures'; but we also have-among nearly eighty books which seem to be genuine- not only purely
rhetorical pieces ('talks', declamations, pastiches of Herodotus), but some works with a more serious link with the intellectual life of the time. These last include a 'life' of the
Cynic Demonax, and devastating, though largely fictitious, accounts of two famous religious charlatans, Alexander of Abonuteichus, an inventor of Mystery Rites, and the
cynic Peregrinus Proteus, who spectacularly burnt himself to death at Olympia in 167. But it is perhaps True Stories, an ancestor of science fiction, that best conveys the
elegance of his imagination, the Lucianic blend of satire and fantasy that appeals to educated children of all ages. The following episode needs no explanation; its techniques
of surprise are easily seen (1. 30-1).
Often, it seems, a change for the better heralds trouble. We had just two days' fair weather sailing. As the third day broke, we suddenly glimpsed against the sunrise a
multitude of monsters and whales, the biggest of all being about 200 miles long. It was approaching with its mouth open, stirring up the sea, the foam breaking around it. It
was displaying teeth taller than a human penis, sharp as rocks and white as ivory. We embraced one another and spoke our last farewells. Then we waited. It was upon us
now, and it swallowed us up, ship and all. However, it failed to break the ship in pieces; she slid down through the gaps in the teeth into the interior. When we were inside,
all was dark at first, and we could see nothing. After a while, however, the monster opened its mouth and we had sight of a high, broad area, large enough to accommodate a
city of 10,000 people. In the middle, there were little fishes and many other animals, all chopped up, with ships' sails, anchors, human bones, cargoes, and, among all this,
land and hills-formed, I imagine, out of the silt that had settled down. There was a wood and trees of all kinds, with vegetables growing, and they had the look of being
cultivated. The circuit of the land area was 30 miles. Sea birds-gulls and halcyons-could be seen nesting in the trees.
Aelius Aristides
Neither Plutarch nor Lucian figures among the second-century 'sophists' whose lives Philostratus wrote, though both were on the fringe of the grand 'sophistic' world-Lucian
indeed more closely involved. Aelius Aristides, Lucian's near contemporary, may stand as the typical Antonine sophist, wealthy, much travelled, flamboyant, egocentric. He
has had little favour in modern times. Unravel his complexities-his style aimed especially at the density of thought of his models, Demosthenes and the speeches in
Thucydides-and the labour seems wasted, so little is there left to grip the mind. We admire, but hardly wish to read twice, the subtle reconstructions of the political
situations of 413 and 370 B.C. which underlie his 'Sicilian' and 'Leuctrian' declamations. It is no wonder that no complete translation of Aristides in any modern language
has been attempted till recently; the magnificent scholarship of Willem Canter's Latin (1566) lay long unstudied and unappreciated. But it is all a little unjust.