Saturday, May 12, 2018

Lucian of Samosata and the False Prophet of Glycon

Lucian of Samosata / Lucianus Samosatensis (circa 125-180 A.D.) was disgusted by mouthy flimflam men. Probably after 160 A.D. (in the Common Era), he wrote a scathing text on the False Prophet of Glycon that sounds amazingly contemporary. 

From about one thousand eight hundred and fifty years ago:

"I feel a sense of shame for both our sakes, yours as well as mine. Yours because you're willing to let the memory of a damned scoundrel be committed to writing and so preserved, mine because I'm spending so much time and energy on such a topic, on the acts of a man who ought not be a subject for the educated to read about but an object for the masses to behold being torn to bits by foxes and apes in some vast theater."

(Translation  by Lionel Casson from Selected Satires of Lucian. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1962, page 269). 

"Torn to bits by foxes and apes?" And here I was thinking in 2018 that basic impeachment or voting a brute out of office would be sufficient. What do you think? 

Today's Rune: Movement. 

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

the more things change, I guess. Wow