Alexander, the Oracle-Monger, the False Prophet | Alexander

SOURCE:
The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Translated by Fowler, H W and F G. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1905.

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Though this is not the most humorous or witty essay, it is perhaps one of the most entertaining pieces of Lucian. It contains an exact and probably true account of a most extraordinary character who figured in his time - the fraud Alexander. It makes one wonder what type of frauds and impostures Lucian was exposed to in the 2nd Century AD. Of all of Lucian's works, Alexander provides the reader with an idea of what sort of person Lucian considered to be spreading lies and obfuscation. Throughout the centuries, there have been glaring frauds and impostures even in the most supposed “enlightened” times.¹³⁾

This account of one of the most crafty, most audacious, and most successful theurgical imposters that ever was, is in certain regards the most important and instructive of all of Lucian's writings. Alexander of Abonoteichos, with whom we are brought acquainted in it, was a real virtuoso in his art. He possessed several requisite talents. He produced great effects from small means. None of his fellow-labourers have come under my observation, who had so nicely calculated, how far a man may trust to human absurdity, and understood how to derive so much advantage from the weak side of the great mass. Striking resemblances render this extraordinary man and his history doubly interesting at the present day. The consideration of what he with such slender means brought effect, should naturally lead us to the thought of what Alexander in our times with the incomparably greater resources now at his command, might perform. But what sort of Paphlagonians must they be, who, warned by such an example, still suffer themselves to be duped?¹⁴⁾

You, my dear Celsus[1], possibly suppose yourself to be laying upon me quite a trifling task: Write me down in a book and send me the life and adventures, the tricks and frauds, of the impostor Alexander of Abonoteichos[2]. In fact, however, it would take as long to do this in full detail as to reduce to writing the achievements of Alexander of Macedon[3]; the one is among villains what the other is among heroes. Nevertheless, if you will promise to read with indulgence, and fill up the gaps in my tale from your imagination, I will assay the task. I may not cleanse that Augean stable[4] completely, but I will do my best, and fetch you out a few loads as samples of the unspeakable filth that three thousand oxen could produce in many years.

[1] Celsus | From several circumstances it appears that the Celsus whom this composition is addressed, and of whom Lucian gives us a very favorable idea, is the very same against whom Origen wrote his apology in behalf of Christianity. Celsus, who had adopted the same principles with our author, laboured with him to one end. His writings against magic, etc. would, if they were still extant, probably would throw a light upon many objects that now either lie in total darkness or are only enlightened on one side.¹⁵⁾
[2] Abonoteichos | A town of Paphlagonia, on the Black Sea (Euxine Sea).¹⁶⁾
[3] Alexander of Macedon | His name-sake.¹⁷⁾
[4] Augean stable | The Fifth Labour of Heracles was to clean the Augean stables, which contained the single greatest number of cattle in the region and was never cleaned until Heracles finished the labour. One estimate was that the stables had not been cleaned for 30 years.

I confess to being a little ashamed both on your account and my own. There are you asking that the memory of arch-scoundrel should be perpetuated in writing; here am I going seriously into an investigation of this sort — the doings of a person whose deserts entitled him not to be read about by the cultivated, but to be torn to pieces in the amphitheatre by apes or foxes, with a vast audience looking on. Well, well, if any one does cast reflections of that sort upon us, we shall at least have a precedent to plead. Arrian himself, a disciple of Epictetus[1], distinguished Roman, and product of lifelong culture as he was, had just our experience and shall make our defence. He condescended, that is, to put on record the life of the robber Tilliborus[2]. The robber we propose to immortalize was of a far more pestilent kind, following his profession not in the forests and mountains, but in cities; he was not content to overrun a Mysia or an Ida[3]; his booty came not from a few scantily populated districts of Asia; one may say that the scene of his depredations was the whole Roman Empire.

[1] Arrian … Epictetus | Arrian wrote down the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus. He was also author of famous biographies and histories.
[2] Tilliborus | This text by Arrian is no longer extant.¹⁸⁾
[3] a Mysia or an Ida | Mysia - region near Troy; Ida - mountain near Troy.

I will begin with a picture of the man himself, as lifelike (though I am not great at description) as I can make it with nothing better than words. In-person — not to forget that part of him — he was a fine handsome man with a real touch of divinity about him, white-skinned, moderately bearded; he wore besides his own hair artificial additions which matched it so cunningly that they were not generally detected. His eyes were piercing, and suggested inspiration, his voice at once sweet and sonorous. In fact, there was no fault to be found with him in these respects.

So much for externals. As for his mind and spirit — well, if all the kind Gods who avert disaster will grant a prayer, it shall be that they bring me not within reach of such a one as he; sooner will I face my bitterest enemies, my country’s foes. In understanding, resource, acuteness, he was far above other men; curiosity, receptiveness, memory, scientific ability — all these were his in overflowing measure. But he used them for the worst purposes. Endowed with all these instruments of good, he very soon reached a proud preeminence among all who have been famous for evil; the Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus[1] — all thrown into the shade. In a letter to his father-in-law Rutilianus[2], which puts his own pretensions in a truly modest light, he compares himself to Pythagoras[3]. Well, I should not like to offend the wise, the divine Pythagoras; but if he had been Alexander’s contemporary, I am quite sure he would have been a mere child to him. Now by all that is admirable, do not take that for an insult to Pythagoras, nor suppose I would draw a parallel between their achievements. What I mean is: if anyone would make a collection[4] of all the vilest and most damaging slanders ever vented against Pythagoras — things whose truth I would not accept for a moment —, the sum of them would not come within measurable distance of Alexander’s cleverness. You are to set your imagination to work and conceive a temperament curiously compounded of falsehood, trickery, perjury, cunning; it is versatile, audacious, adventurous, yet dogged in execution; it is plausible enough to inspire confidence; it can assume the mask of virtue, and seem to eschew what it most desires. I suppose no one ever left him after a first interview without the impression that this was the best and kindest of men, ay, and the simplest and most unsophisticated. Add to all this a certain greatness in his objects; he never made a small plan; his ideas were always large.

[1] Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus | All famous rascals of antiquity¹⁹⁾ before and in the time of Lucian.²⁰⁾
[2] Rutilianus | Publius Mummius Sisenna Rutilianus - a Roman senator of the second century AD.
[3] Pythagoras | A Greek philosopher and mathematician.
[4] collection | As Iamblichus and Porphyry did, long as Lucian's time, through the intention of doing honour to Pythagoras by it.²¹⁾

While in the bloom of his youthful beauty, which we may assume to have been great both from its later remains and from the report of those who saw it, he traded quite shamelessly upon it. Among his other patrons was one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations; they will smooth your course of love, confound your enemies, find your treasure, or secure you an inheritance. This person was struck with the lad’s natural qualifications for apprenticeship to his trade, and finding him as much attracted by rascality as attractive in appearance, gave him a regular training as accomplice, satellite, and attendant. His own ostensible profession was medicine[1], and his knowledge included, like that of Thoon the Egyptian's wife[2],

Many drugs are virtuous herbs, and many are scourges;[3]

to all which inheritance our friend succeeded. This teacher and lover of his was a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius[4], and acquainted with all his heroics. And now you know the atmosphere in which Alexander lived.

[1] medicine | Here we find Alexander as a man addicted to the occult sciences, and, like almost all charlatans of that species, practiced medicine as a cloak and vehicle for them.²²⁾
[2] Thoon the Egyptian's wife | Thoni. She is said to have been the inventor of physic amongst the Egyptians.²³⁾
[3] Many a virtuous herb, and many a bane | A quote from Homer's Odyssey, 4.232.²⁴⁾
[4] Apollonius | Apollonius of Tyana.²⁵⁾

By the time his beard had come, the Tyanean[1] was dead, and he found himself in straits; for the personal attractions which might once have been a resource were diminished. He now formed great designs, which he imparted to a Byzantine chronicler of the strolling competitive order[2], a man of still worse character than himself, called, I believe, Cocconas[3] . The pair went about living on occult pretensions, shearing ‘fat-heads,’[4] as they describe ordinary people in the native Magian lingo. Among these they got hold of a rich Macedonian woman; her youth was past, but not her desire for admiration; they got sufficient supplies out of her, and accompanied her from Bithynia to Macedonia[5]. She came from Pella[6], which had been a flourishing place under the Macedonian kingdom, but has now a poor and much-reduced population.

[1] Tyanean | Referring to Apollonius of Tyana
[2] chronicler of the strolling competitive order | Wieland translates this word, λογοποιὸς, which has several possible significations, as “comedy-scribbler” based on its use in Athenaeus.²⁶⁾
[3] Cocconas | Pomegranate seeds. Perhaps alludes to male testicles.
[4] shearing 'fat-heads' | A cunning fellow is a close shearer. Fat-headed fellows is a metaphor for the ignorant or vulgar.²⁷⁾
[5] Bithynia to Macedonia | From the north coast of Anatolia to northern Greece, or east to west.
[6] Pella | A district in Macedonia, famous for being the birthplace of Philip, who enlarged it, and afterward Alexander the Great.²⁸⁾ Pella was once the seat of the Macedonian kings, but otherwise in Lucian's time a very insignificant town. In the days of Lucian, it was a Roman colony, under the pompous appellation of Julia Augusta.²⁹⁾

There is here a breed of large serpents[1], so tame and gentle that women make pets of them, children take them to bed, they will let you tread on them, have no objection to being squeezed, and will draw milk from the breast like infants. To these facts is probably to be referred the common story about Olympias[2] when she was with child of Alexander; it was doubtless one of these that was her bed-fellow. Well, the two saw these creatures[3] and bought the finest they could get for a few pence.

[1] large serpents | The zoologists mention this species of serpent under the denomination of Serpens Aesculapius, and a smaller race of them is found in Italy, which are reported to be harmless and familiar as the larger ones here in question.³⁰⁾
[2] Olympias | Alexander the Great's mother. She is said to have herself given out, that Zeus, in the form of a large serpent, came to her and became father of Alexander.³¹⁾
[3] reptiles | The figure of this dragon, as it is called on the coins, which we shall have on farther occasion to mention by and by, perfectly confirms the description of Lucian; for he appears on them as a serpent of extraordinary length and thickness.³²⁾

And from this point, as Thucydides[1] might say, the war takes its beginning. These ambitious scoundrels were quite devoid of scruples, and they had now joined forces; it could not escape their penetration that human life is under the absolute dominion of two mighty principles, fear and hope and that anyone who can make these serve his ends may be sure of a rapid fortune. They realized that, whether a man is most swayed by the one or by the other, what he must most depend upon and desire is a knowledge of futurity. So were to be explained the ancient wealth and fame of Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae[2]; it was at the bidding of the two tyrants aforesaid that men thronged the temples, longed for fore-knowledge, and to attain it sacrificed their hecatombs or dedicated their golden ingots. All this they turned over and debated, and it issued in the resolve to establish an oracle. If it were successful, they looked for immediate wealth and prosperity; the result surpassed their most sanguine expectations[3].

[1] Thucydides | Along with Herodotus, one of the pre-eminent Greek historians of the fifth century BC.
[2] Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae | Places all famous for the oracles established in them.³³⁾ The oracle at Didymi, that was in the possession of a family which derived its pedigree from Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who was endued by that god, for himself and his posterity, with the gift of prophecy.³⁴⁾
[3] sanguine expectations | To render this scheme of the confederate imposters more comprehensible, it should be understood that serpents, or dragons, had from time immemorial been in the reputation of being divinatorial by nature. The prophetic gift is a quality peculiar to the dragon, says Aelian, Hist. Animal. 11.16. Hence all serpents, as we are assured by Pausanias, in Corinth. cap. 23 but particularly a certain tame and innoxious species of them produced in Epidauria. And for that reason, these animals are frequently found as symbola both of divination and of medicine, which in some measure is a species of the former, on coins, gems, and other ancient monuments. It was particularly usual to represent Aesculapius under this figure, since he, agreeable to a popular tradition, had transferred himself in the shape of a serpent to the Romans on their being commanded by an oracle to fetch this deity from Epidaurus to Rome, for quelling the pestilence that raged in that capital A. U. C. 461, an event, confirmed by no less by poets (Ov. Metam. 15) and historians (Valer. Max. 1.8. Liv 19 and others) than by one of the most beautiful coins described by Spanheim.³⁵⁾

The next things to be settled were, first the theatre of operations, and secondly the plan of campaign. Cocconas favoured Chalcedon[1], as a mercantile centre convenient both for Thrace and Bithynia, and accessible enough for the province of Asia, Galatia, and tribes still further east[2]. Alexander, on the other hand, preferred his native place, urging very truly that an enterprise like theirs required congenial soil to give it a start, in the shape of ‘fat-heads’ and simpletons; that was a fair description, he said, of the Paphlagonians[3] beyond Abonoteichos; they were mostly superstitious and well-to-do; one had only to go there with someone to play the flute, the tambourine, or the cymbals, set the proverbial mantic sieve[4] a-spinning, and there they would all be gaping as if he were a God from heaven.

[1] Chalcedon | City located almost directly south of Byzantium.
[2] Asia, Galatia | Asia is the territory also known as Phrygia, located in northwest Anatolia; Galatia is the province directly east of Asia and south of Bithynia.
[3] Paphlagonia | Part of the Pontus region in north Anatolia.
[4] sieve | Koskinomancy, or divination by the sieve. Alluding probably to that passage 3d in Idylls of Theocritus, where the shepherd speaking of a cunning woman, or fortune-teller, says,
She turn'd the sieve, and sheers, and told me true
That I should love, and not be lov'd by you.
This kind of divination was generally practised to discover thieves, or other suspected of any crime, in this manner: they tied a thread to the sieve, by which it was upheld, then prayed to the gods to direct and assist them, and he, at whose name the sieve whirled round, or moved, was thought to have committed the fact.³⁶⁾

This difference of opinion did not last long, and Alexander prevailed. Discovering, however, that a use might, after all, be made of Chalcedon, they went there first, and in the temple of Apollo, the oldest in the place, they buried some brazen tablets, on which was the statement that very shortly Asclepius, with his father Apollo[1], would pay a visit to Pontus, and take up his abode at Abonoteichos[2]. The discovery of the tablets took place as arranged, and the news flew through Bithynia and Pontus[3], first of all, naturally, to Abonoteichos. The people of that place at once resolved to raise a temple and lost no time in digging the foundations. Cocconas was now left at Chalcedon, engaged in composing certain ambiguous crabbed oracles. He shortly afterward died, I believe, of a viper’s bite.

[1] Asclepius and Apollo | Asclepius is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Greek religion and mythology. He is the son of Apollo.
[2] Abonoteichos | A coin that was struck during the reign of Antoninus Pius for the Abonoteichiteans has the figure of the Emperor on one side and on the reverse two serpents, the one seeming to whisper something in the ear of the other. It is a possibility that this coin was struck to perpetuate the arrival of these two divinities at Abonoteichos. To indicate by the symbol on the coin, that the new Aesculapius had received his prophetic gift immediately from his father Apollo.³⁷⁾
[3] Bithynia and Pontus | Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus were the three northern provinces of Lesser Asia, or those bordering on Euxine Sea. Sometimes the two latter together are called Pontus. In Lucian's time, they were all three under one sole governor-general or proconsul.
[4] Map of Bithynia and Pontus |

Alexander meanwhile went on in advance; he had now grown his hair and wore it in long curls; his doublet was white and purple striped, his cloak pure white; he carried a scimitar in imitation of Perseus[1], from whom he now claimed descent through his mother. The wretched Paphlagonians, who knew perfectly well that his parentage was obscure and mean on both sides, nevertheless gave credence to the oracle, which ran:

Lo, sprung from Perseus, and dear to Phoebus[2],
Almighty Alexander, Podalirius’[3] son!

Podalirius, it seems, was of so highly amorous a complexion that the distance between Tricca[4] and Paphlagonia was no bar to his union with Alexander’s mother. A Sibylline prophecy[5] had also been found:

Hard by Sinope on the Euxine shore
In the Roman (Italic) age, by a fortress, a prophet sees.
To the first monad let thrice ten be added,
Then five monads more, and then a triple score:
Such is the quaternion of the alexic name[6].

[1] scimitar in imitation of Perseus | Perseus was given a scimitar — (probably) a straight, double-edged sword — from Hermes.
[2] Phoebus | The god Apollo.
[3] Podalirius | A son of Asclepius who fought in the Trojan War for the Greeks.
[4] Tricca | A city-state of ancient Thessaly, northeast mainland of Greece.
[5] Sibylline prophecy | Collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters.
[6] name | A mysterious kind of hocus pocus which the false prophet's friends made use of to express the first four letters of his name, by the letters in the Greek alphabet being numerical, as thus: A = 1 (α) | L = 30 (λ) | E = 5 (ε) | X = 60 (Ξ). If the reader will take the trouble properly to divide and multiply the numbers, he will find that the letters together form αλεΞ, Alex. This sufficiently points out the meaning of the passage.³⁸⁾

This heroic entry into his long-left home placed Alexander conspicuously before the public; he affected madness, and frequently foamed at the mouth — a manifestation easily produced by chewing the herb soap-wort, used by dyers; but it brought him reverence and awe. The two had long ago manufactured and fitted up a serpent’s head of linen; they had given it a more or less human expression, and painted it very like the real article; by a contrivance of horsehair, the mouth could be opened and shut, and a forked black serpent tongue protruded, working on the same system. The serpent from Pella was also kept ready in the house, to be produced at the right moment and take its part in the drama — the leading part, indeed.

In the fullness of time, his plan took shape. He went one night to the temple foundations, still in process of digging, and with standing water in them which had collected from the rainfall or otherwise; here he deposited a goose egg, into which, after blowing it, he had inserted some new-born reptile. He made a resting-place deep down in the mud for this and departed. Early next morning he rushed into the market-place, naked except for a gold-spangled loin-cloth; with nothing but this and his scimitar, and shaking his long loose hair, like the fanatics who collect money in the name of Cybele[1], he climbed on to a lofty altar and delivered a harangue, felicitating the city upon the advent of the God now to bless them with his presence. In a few minutes nearly the whole population was on the spot, women, old men, and children included; all was awe, prayer, and adoration. He uttered some unintelligible sounds, which might have been Hebrew or Phoenician[2], but completed his victory over his audience, who could make nothing of what he said, beyond the constant repetition of the names Apollo and Asclepius.

[1] Cybele | Great mother goddess of Anatolia.
[2] Hebrew or Phoenician | Both are languages from the Central Semitic language subgroup and would have sounded similar to an untrained ear.

He then set off at a run for the future temple. Arrived at the excavation and the already completed sacred fount, he got down into the water, chanted in loud voice hymns to Asclepius and Apollo, and invited the God to come, a welcome guest, to the city. He next demanded a bowl, and when this was handed to him, had no difficulty in putting it down at the right place and scooping up, besides water and mud, the egg in which the God had been enclosed; the edges of the aperture had been joined with wax and white lead. He took the egg in his hand and announced that here he held Asclepius. The people, who had been sufficiently astonished by the discovery of the egg in the water, were now all eyes for what was to come. He broke it, and received in his hollowed palm the hardly developed reptile; the crowd could see it stirring and winding about his fingers; they raised a shout, hailed the God, blessed the city, and every mouth was full of prayers — for treasure and wealth and health and all the other good things that he might give. Our hero now departed homewards, still running, with the new-born Asclepius in his hands —

the twice-born, too, whereas ordinary men are born one time

and born moreover not of Coronis nor even of her namesake the crow[1], but of a goose! After him streamed the whole people, in all the madness of fanatic hopes.

[1] crow | Gr. κορωνις, Coronis, this is nothing but a pun on the word coronis, which in Greek signifies also a crow, who was the mother of Asclepius (in some versions of the Asclepius myth).³⁹⁾

He now kept the house for some days, in hopes that the Paphlagonians would soon be drawn in crowds by the news. He was not disappointed; the city was filled to overflowing with persons who had neither brains nor individuality, who bore no resemblance to men that live by bread and had only their outward shape to distinguish them from sheep. In a small room he took his seat, very imposingly attired, upon a couch. He took into his bosom our Asclepius of Pella (a very fine and large one, as I observed), wound its body round his neck, and let its tail hang down; there was enough of this not only to fill his lap but to trail on the ground also; the patient creature’s head he kept hidden in his armpit, showing the linen head on one side of his beard exactly as if it belonged to the visible body.

Picture to yourself a little chamber into which no very brilliant light was admitted, with a crowd of people from all quarters, excited, carefully worked up, all a-flutter with expectation. As they came in, they might naturally find a miracle in the development of that little crawling thing of a few days ago into this great, tame, human-looking serpent. Then they had to get on at once towards the exit, being pressed forward by the new arrivals before they could have a good look. An exit had been specially made just opposite the entrance, for all the world like the Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill[1]; he was in extremis, you remember, and the crowd round the palace were eager to take their last look and give their last greeting. Our scoundrel’s exhibition, though, is said to have been given not once, but many times, especially for the benefit of any wealthy new-comers.

[1] The Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill | An illusion to how the general Macedonian soldiers were granted the right to file past Alexander's death bed as he silently waved at them.

And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics; the poor uneducated ‘fat-heads’ might well be taken in when they handled the serpent — a privilege conceded to all who choose — and saw in that dim light its head with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus, nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus[1], perhaps, a man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility.

[1] Democritus, … Epicurus or a Metrodorus | Philosophers who were followers of atomic theory and were critical of the supernatural.

By degrees Bithynia, Galatia, Thrace, came flocking in, everyone who had been present doubtless reporting that he had beheld the birth of the God, and had touched him after his marvellous development in size and in expression. Next came pictures and models, bronze or silver images, and the God acquired a name. By divine command, metrically expressed, he was to be known as Glycon. For Alexander had delivered the line:

Glycon is my name,
man’s light,
son’s son (grandson) to Zeus.

And now, at last, the object to which all this had led up, the giving of oracular answers to all applicants, could be attained. The cue was taken from Amphilochus in Cilicia[1]. After the death and disappearance at Thebes of his father Amphiaraus[2], Amphilochus, driven from his home, made his way to Cilicia[3], and there did not at all badly by prophesying to the Cilicians at the rate of three-pence an oracle. After taking this cue[4], Alexander proclaimed that on a stated day the God would give answers to all comers. Each person was to write down his wish and the object of his curiosity, fasten the packet with thread and seal it with wax, clay, or other such substance. He would receive these, and enter the holy place (by this time the temple was complete, and the scene all ready), whither the givers should be summoned in order by a herald and an acolyte; he would learn the God’s mind upon each, and return the packets with their seals intact and the answers attached, the God being ready to give a definite answer to any question that might be put.

[1] Amphilochus in Cilicia | Succeeded his father Amphiaraus in the business of divination by dreams, for which both the oracles were famous.⁴⁰⁾; Cilicia is a province in southern Anatolia near Mesopotamia.
[2] Amphiaraus | A legendary king of Argos, famously known as a seer and oracle.
[3] Cilicia | Southern edge of Anatolia.
[4] After taking this cue | Gr. Το ενδοσιμον λαζων. Updated English text to Franklin's language. An allusion to music when one finger takes up the words from another, as in catches.⁴¹⁾

The trick here was one which would be seen through easily enough by a person of your intelligence (or, if I may say so without violating modesty, of my own), but which to the ordinary imbecile would have the persuasiveness of what is marvellous and incredible. He contrived various methods of undoing the seals, read the questions, answered them as seemed good, and then folded, sealed, and returned them, to the great astonishment of the recipients. And then it was, ‘How could he possibly know what I gave him carefully secured under a seal that defies imitation, unless he were a true God, with a God’s omniscience?’

Perhaps you will ask what these contrivances were; well, then — the information may be useful another time. One of them was this. He would heat a needle[1], melt with it the under part of the wax, lift the seal off, and after reading warm the wax once more with the needle — both that below the thread and that which formed the actual seal — and re-unite the two without difficulty. Another method employed the substance called collyrium[2]; this is a preparation of Bruttian pitch[3], bitumen[4], pounded glass, wax, and mastich. He kneaded the whole into collyrium, heated it, placed it on the seal, previously moistened with his tongue, and so took a mould. This soon hardened; he simply opened, read, replaced the wax, and reproduced an excellent imitation of the original seal as from an engraved stone. One more I will give you. Adding some gypsum to the glue used in book-binding he produced a sort of wax, which was applied still wet to the seal, and on being taken off solidified at once and provided a matrix harder than horn, or even iron. There are plenty of other devices for the purpose, to rehearse which would seem like airing one’s knowledge. Moreover, in your excellent pamphlets against the Magians (most useful and instructive reading they are) you have yourself collected enough of them — many more than those I have mentioned.

[1] heat the needle | Method of opening letters to hide tampering. This method of concealment was practiced up into recent times.⁴²⁾
[2] collyrium | Cleanser, salve, or wash for the eyes.
[3] Bruttian pitch | Bruttium, region of southern Italy, was celebrated for its forests, which produced both timber and pitch of the highest value for ship-building.
[4] bitumen | Asphalt

So oracles and divine utterances were the order of the day, and much shrewdness he displayed, eking out mechanical ingenuity with obscurity, his answers to some being crabbed and ambiguous, and to others absolutely unintelligible. He did, however, distribute warning and encouragement according to his lights, and recommend treatments and diets; for he had, as I originally stated, a wide and serviceable acquaintance with drugs; he was particularly given to prescribing ‘cytmides,’ which were a salve prepared from goat’s fat, the name being of his own invention. For the realization of ambitions, advancement, or successions, he took care never to assign early dates; the formula was, ‘All this shall come to pass when it is my will, and when my prophet Alexander shall make prayer and entreaty on your behalf.’

There was a fixed charge[1] of a shilling the oracle. And, my friend, do not suppose that this would not come to much; he made something like 3,000 per annum; people were insatiable — would take from ten to fifteen oracles at a time. What he got he did not keep to himself, nor put it by for the future; what with accomplices, attendants, inquiry agents, oracle writers and keepers, amanuenses[2], seal-forgers, and interpreters, he had now a host of claimants to satisfy.

[1] fixed charge | The charge was reasonable, but the small amount was made up for with a large volume of oracle customers.⁴³⁾
[2] amanuenses | A person employed to write or type what another dictates or copy written text verbatim.

He had begun sending emissaries abroad to make the shrine known in foreign lands; his prophecies, discovery of runaways, the conviction of thieves and robbers, revelations of hidden treasure, cures of the sick, restoration of the dead to life — all these were to be advertised. This brought them running and crowding from all points of the compass; victims bled, gifts were presented, and the prophet and disciple came off better than the God; for had not the oracle spoken?—

Give what you give to my attendant priest;
My care is not for gifts, but for my priest.

A time came when a number of sensible people began to shake off their intoxication and combine against him, chief among them the numerous Epicureans[1]; in the cities, the imposture with all its theatrical accessories began to be seen through. It was now that he resorted to a measure of intimidation; he proclaimed that Pontus was overrun with atheists and Christians, who presumed to spread the most scandalous reports concerning him; he exhorted Pontus[2], as it valued the God’s favour, to stone these men. Touching Epicurus, he gave the following response. An inquirer had asked how Epicurus fared in Hades and was told:

Of slime[3] is his bed,
And his fetters of lead.

The prosperity of the oracle is perhaps not so wonderful when one learns what sensible, intelligent questions were in fashion with its votaries. Well, it was war to the knife between him and Epicurus, and no wonder. What fitter enemy for a charlatan who patronized miracles and hated truth, than the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and was in solitary possession of that truth? As for the Platonists, Stoics, Pythagoreans, they were his good friends; he had no quarrel with them. But the unmitigated Epicurus, as he used to call him, could not but be hateful to him, treating all such pretensions as absurd and puerile. Alexander consequently loathed Amastris[4] beyond all the cities of Pontus, knowing what a number of Lepidus's friends and others like-minded it contained. He would not give oracles to Amastrians; when he once did, to a senator's brother, he made himself ridiculous, neither hitting upon a presentable oracle for himself, nor finding a deputy equal to the occasion. The man had complained of colic, and what he meant to prescribe was pig’s foot dressed with mallow[5]. The shape it took was:

In basin hallowed
Be pigments mallowed.

[1] Epicureans | The Epicureans were always the avowed enemies of oracles and divinations; and even in the times of the oracles' greatest influence and power, frequently and openly derided them.⁴⁴⁾
[2] Pontus | An ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the Greek primordial deities.
[3] slime | Or mud. Alluding to the idea the Epicureans wallowed in sensual pleasures.⁴⁵⁾
[4] Amastris | A small port town located on the Black Sea.
[5] Illustration and definition of mallow | Any of a genus of herbs with palmately lobed or dissected leaves, usually showy flowers, and a disk-shaped fruit.⁴⁶⁾ Mallow was used medicinally for common stomach ailments and throat irritation.

Mallow Plant

I have mentioned that the serpent was often exhibited by request; he was not completely visible, but the tail and body were exposed, while the head was concealed under the prophet’s dress. By way of impressing the people still more, he announced that he would induce the God to speak, and give his responses without an intermediary. His simple device to this end was a tube of cranes’ windpipes, which he passed, with due regard to its matching, through the artificial head, and, having an assistant speaking into the end outside, whose voice issued through the linen Asclepius, thus answered questions. These oracles were called autophones, and were not vouchsafed casually to any one, but reserved for officials, the rich, and the lavish.

It was an autophone which was given to Severian[1] regarding the invasion of Armenia. He encouraged him with these lines:

Armenia and Parthia are beaten-down by your fierce spear,
To Rome, and Tiber’s shining waves, you arrived,
Your brow with leaves and radiant gold encircled.

Then when the foolish Gaul took his advice and invaded, to the total destruction of himself and his army by Othryades, the adviser expunged that oracle from his archives and substituted the following:

Vex not the Armenian land;
it shall not thrive;
One in soft raiment clad shall from his bow
Launch death, and cut you off from life and light.

[1] Severian | A Roman governor.

For it was one of his happy thoughts to issue prophecies after the event as antidotes to those premature utterances which had not gone right. Frequently he promised recovery to a sick man before his death, and after it was at no loss for second thoughts:

No longer seek to stop your deadly disease;
Your fate is manifest, inevitable.

Knowing the fame of Clarus, Didymus, and Mallus[1] for sooth-saying much like his own, he struck up an alliance with them, sending on many of his clients to those places. So

Hastily, go to Clarus now, and hear my master.

And again,

Draw near to Branchidae[2] and take their advice.

Or

Seek Mallus; be Amphilochus[3] your counsellor.

[1] Clarus, Didymus, and Mallus | Locations of shrines to Apollo.
[2] Branchidae | Another name for Didymus.
[3] Amphilochus | The oracle of Amphilochus was one of the longest-lived religious shrines of antiquity. It was a flourishing site even as late as the reign of Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great.⁴⁷⁾

So things went within the borders of Ionia, Cilicia, Paphlagonia, and Galatia. When the fame of the oracle travelled to Italy and entered Rome, the only question was, who should be first; those who did not come in person sent messages, the powerful and respected being the keenest of all. First and foremost among these was Rutilianus; he was in most respects an excellent person, and had filled many high offices in Rome; but he suffered from religious mania, holding the most extraordinary beliefs on that matter; show him a bit of stone smeared with unguents or crowned with flowers, and he would incontinently fall down and worship, and linger about it praying and asking for blessings. The reports about our oracle early induced him to throw up the appointment he then held, and fly to Abonoteichos; he actually did send messenger upon messenger. His envoys were ignorant servants, easily taken in. They came back having really seen certain things, relating others which they probably thought they had seen and heard, and yet others which they deliberately invented to curry favour with their master. So they inflamed the poor old man and drove him into confirmed madness.

He had a wide circle of influential friends, to whom he communicated the news brought by his successive messengers, not without additional touches of his own. All Rome was full of his tales; there was quite a commotion, the gentlemen of the Court being much fluttered, and at once taking measures to learn something of their own fate. The prophet gave all who came a hearty welcome, gained their goodwill by hospitality and costly gifts, and sent them off ready not merely to report his answers, but to sing the praises of the God and invent miraculous tales of the shrine and its guardian.

This triple rogue now hit upon an idea which would have been too clever for the ordinary robber. Opening and reading the packets which reached him, whenever he came upon an equivocal, compromising question, he omitted to return the packet; the sender was to be under his thumb, bound to his service by the terrifying recollection of the question he had written down. You know the sort of things that wealthy and powerful personages would be likely to ask. This blackmail brought him in a good income.

I should like to quote you one or two of the answers given to Rutilianus. He had a son by a former wife, just old enough for advanced teaching. The father asked who should be his tutor, and was told,

Pythagoras, and the mighty battle-bard.

When the child died a few days after, the prophet was abashed and quite unable to account for this summary confutation. However, dear good Rutilianus very soon restored the oracle’s credit by discovering that this was the very thing the God had foreshown; he had not directed him to choose a living teacher; Pythagoras and Homer were long dead, and doubtless the boy was now enjoying their instructions in Hades. Small blame to Alexander if he had a taste for dealings with such specimens of humanity as this.

Another of Rutilianus’s questions was, Whose soul he had succeeded to, and the answer:

First you were Peleus’ son (Achilles), and next Menander;
Then your own self; next, a sunbeam;
And nine score annual rounds your life shall measure.

At seventy, he died of melancholy, not waiting for the God to pay in full.

That was an autophone too. Another time Rutilianus consulted the oracle on the choice of a wife. The answer was express:

Wed Alexander’s and Selene’s[1] daughter

He had long ago spread the report that the daughter he had had was by Selene: she had once seen him asleep, and fallen in love, as is her way[2] with handsome sleepers. The sensible Rutilianus lost no time, but sent for the maiden at once, celebrated the nuptials, a sexagenarian bridegroom, and lived with her, propitiating his divine mother-in-law with whole hecatombs, and reckoning himself now one of the heavenly company.

[1] Selene | Goddess of the moon.
[2] her way | Allusion to the story of Endymion.⁴⁸⁾ From Pseudo-Apollodorus 1.7.5: Calyce and Aethlius had a son Endymion who led Aeolians from Thessaly and founded Elis. But some say that he was a son of Zeus. As he was of surpassing beauty, the Moon fell in love with him, and Zeus allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to sleep forever, remaining deathless and ageless.⁴⁹⁾

His finger once in the Italian pie, Alexander devoted himself to getting further. Sacred envoys were sent all over the Roman Empire, warning the various cities to be on their guard against pestilence and conflagrations, with the prophet’s offers of security against them. One oracle in particular, an autophone again, he distributed broadcast at a time of pestilence. It was a single line:

Phoebus, long-haired, the plague-cloud shall dispel.

This was everywhere to be seen written up on doors as a prophylactic. Its effect was generally disappointing; for it somehow happened that the protected houses were just the ones to be desolated. Not that I would suggest for a moment that the line was their destruction; but, accidentally no doubt, it did so fall out. Possibly common people put too much confidence in the verse, and lived carelessly without troubling to help the oracle against its foe; were there not the words fighting their battle, and long-tressed Phoebus discharging his arrows at the pestilence?

In Rome itself, he established an intelligence bureau well manned with his accomplices. They sent him people’s characters, forecasts of their questions, and hints of their ambitions, so that he had his answers ready before the messengers reached him.

It was with his eye on this Italian propaganda, too, that he took a further step. This was the institution of mysteries, with hierophants and torch-bearers complete. The ceremonies occupied three successive days. On the first, proclamation was made on the Athenian model to this effect: ‘If there be any atheist or Christian or Epicurean here spying upon our rites, let him depart in haste; and let all such as have faith in the God be initiated and all blessing attend them.’ He led the litany with, ‘Christians, avaunt!’ and the crowd responded, ‘Epicureans, avaunt!’ Then was presented the child-bed of Leto and birth of Apollo, the bridal of Coronis, Asclepius born. The second day, the epiphany and nativity of the God Glycon.

On the third came the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander’s mother; this was called Dadae[1], and torches were used. The finale was the loves of Selene and Alexander, and the birth of Rutilianus’s wife. The torch-bearer and hierophant was Endymion–Alexander. He was discovered lying asleep; to him from heaven, represented by the ceiling, enter as Selene one Rutilia, a great beauty, and wife of one of the Imperial procurators. She and Alexander were lovers off the stage too, and the wretched husband had to look on at their public kissing and embracing; if there had not been a good supply of torches, things might possibly have gone even further. Shortly after, he reappeared amidst a profound hush, attired as hierophant; in a loud voice he called, ‘Hail, Glycon!’, whereto the Eumolpidae[2] and Ceryces[3] of Paphlagonia, with their clod-hopping shoes and their garlic breath, made a sonorous response, ‘Hail, Alexander!’

[1] Dadae | From δαδας, torches⁵⁰⁾
[2] Eumolpidae | Chief priests of Ceres, a dignity which they enjoy by hereditary right, conferred on them by the Athenians, as descendants of Eumolpus: as the mock mysteries of Alexander were designed by him as an imitation of the great Eleusinian rites, it was very proper he should be furnished with all necessary appurtenances for the performance of them.⁵¹⁾
[3] Ceryces | Word meaning herald.

The torch ceremony with its ritual skippings often enabled him to bestow a glimpse of his thigh, which was thus discovered to be of gold; it was presumably enveloped in cloth of gold, which glittered in the lamp-light. This gave rise to a debate between two wiseacres, whether the golden thigh[1] meant that he had inherited Pythagoras’s soul, or merely that their two souls were alike; the question was referred to Alexander himself, and King Glycon relieved their perplexity with an oracle:

Waxes and wanes Pythagoras’ soul: the seer’s
Is from the mind of Zeus an emanation.
His Father sent him, virtuous men to aid,
And with his bolt, one day shall call him home.

[1] golden thigh | Pythagoras is said to have had a golden thigh, which he showed to Abris[a], the Hyperborean[b] priest, and exhibited in the Olympic games.

[a] Abris | a legendary sage, healer, and priest of Apollo known to the Ancient Greeks.
[b] Hyperborean | A race of giants who lived “beyond the North Wind”.

I will now give you a conversation between Glycon and one Sacerdos of Tius[1]; the intelligence of the latter you may gauge from his questions. I read it inscribed in golden letters in Sacerdos’s house at Tius. ‘Tell me, lord Glycon,’ said he, ‘who you are.’ ‘The new Asclepius.’ ‘Another, different from the former one? Is that the meaning?’ ‘That it is not lawful for you to learn.’ ‘And how many years will you sojourn and prophesy among us?’ ‘A thousand and three.’ ‘And after that, whither will you go?’ ‘To Bactria; for the barbarians too must be blessed with my presence.’ ‘The other oracles, at Didymus and Clarus and Delphi, have they still the spirit of your grandsire Apollo, or are the answers that now come from them forgeries?’ ‘That, too, desire not to know; it is not lawful.’ ‘What shall I be after this life?’ ‘A camel; then a horse; then a wise man, no less a prophet than Alexander.’ Such was the conversation. There was added to it an oracle in verse, inspired by the fact that Sacerdos was an associate of Lepidus:

Shun Lepidus; an evil fate awaits him.

As I have said, Alexander was much afraid of Epicurus, and the solvent action of his logic on imposture.

[1] Tius | A Greek town on the coast of Bithynia.

On one occasion, indeed, an Epicurean got himself into great trouble by daring to expose him before a great gathering. He came up and addressed him in a loud voice. ‘Alexander, it was you who induced So-and-so the Paphlagonian to bring his slaves before the governor of Galatia, charged with the murder of his son who was being educated in Alexandria. Well, the young man is alive, and has come back, to find that the slaves had been cast to the beasts by your machinations.’ What had happened was this. The lad had sailed up the Nile, gone on to a Red Sea port, found a vessel starting for India, and been persuaded to make the voyage. He being long overdue, the unfortunate slaves supposed that he had either perished in the Nile or fallen a victim to some of the pirates who infested it at that time; so they came home to report his disappearance. Then followed the oracle, the sentence, and finally the young man’s return with the story of his absence.

All this the Epicurean recounted. Alexander was much annoyed by the exposure, and could not stomach so well deserved an affront; he directed the company to stone the man, on pain of being involved in his impiety and called Epicureans. However, when they set to work, a distinguished Pontic called Demostratus, who was staying there, rescued him by interposing his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from being stoned to death — as he richly deserved to be; what business had he to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation?

This was a special case, but it was the practice for the names of applicants to be read out the day before answers were given; the herald asked whether each was to receive his oracle; and sometimes the reply came from within, To perdition! One so repulsed could get shelter, fire or water, from no man; he must be driven from land to land as a blasphemer, an atheist, and — lowest depth of all — an Epicurean.

In this connexion, Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous. Coming across Epicurus’s Accepted Maxims, the most admirable of his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the market-place, there burned it on a fig-wood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion:

The dotard’s maxims to the flames be given.

The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon its readers, of the peace, tranquillity, and independence of mind it produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and marvels, vain hopes and inordinate desires, of the judgement and candour that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and frankness.

Perhaps the greatest example of our rogue’s audacity is what I now come to. Having easy access to Palace and Court by Rutilianus’s influence, he sent an oracle just at the crisis of the German war, when M. Aurelius was on the point of engaging the Marcomanni and Quadi[1]. The oracle required that two lions should be flung alive into the Danube, with quantities of sacred herbs and magnificent sacrifices. I had better give the words:

To rolling Ister, swollen with Heaven’s rain,
Of Cybelean thralls, those mountain beasts,
Fling you a pair; therewith all flowers and herbs
Of savour sweet that Indian air does breed.
Hence victory, and fame, and lovely peace.

These directions were precisely followed; the lions swam across to the enemy’s bank, where they were clubbed to death by the barbarians, who took them for dogs or a new kind of wolves; and our forces immediately after met with a severe defeat, losing some twenty thousand men in one engagement. This was followed by the Aquileian incident, in the course of which that city was nearly lost. In view of these results, Alexander warmed up that stale Delphian defence of the Croesus oracle[2]: the God had foretold a victory, forsooth, but had not stated whether Romans or barbarians should have it.

[1] Marcomanni and Quadi | Definition: “men of the mark, or border”, the name of a Suevic tribe. With kindred peoples they were often in conflict with the Roman Empire, and gave their name to the Marcomannic War, a struggle waged by the emperor Marcus Aurelius against them and the Quadi. The Marcomanni disappeared from history during the 4th century, being probably merged in the Baiouarii, the later Bavarians.⁵²⁾
[2] Croesus oracle | Famous oracle in which stated that if Croesus attacked the Persians, he would destroy a great empire, which turned out to be his own.

The constant increase in the number of visitors, the inadequacy of accommodation in the city, and the difficulty of finding provisions for consultants led to his introducing what he called night oracles. He received the packets, slept upon them, in his own phrase, and gave answers which the God was supposed to send him in dreams. These were generally not lucid, but ambiguous and confused, especially when he came to packets sealed with exceptional care. He did not risk tampering with these but wrote down any words that came into his head, the results obtained corresponding well enough to his conception of the oracular. There were regular interpreters in attendance, who made considerable sums out of the recipients by expounding and unriddling these oracles. This office contributed to his revenue, the interpreters paying him 250 each.

Sometimes he stirred the wonder of the silly by answers to persons who had neither brought nor sent questions and in fact did not exist. Here is a specimen:

Who is it, you ask, that with Calligenia
All secretly defiles your nuptial bed?
The slave Protogenes, whom you most trust.
Him you enjoyed: he your wife enjoys —
The fit return for that your outrage done.
And know that baleful drugs for you are brewed,
Lest you see or hear their evil deeds.
Close by the wall, at your bed’s head, make search.
Your maid Calypso to their plot is privy.

The names and circumstantial details might stagger a Democritus, till a moment’s thought showed him the despicable trick.

He often gave answers in Syriac or Celtic to barbarians who questioned him in their own tongue, though he had difficulty in finding compatriots of theirs in the city. In these cases, there was a long interval between application and response, during which the packet might be securely opened at leisure, and somebody found capable of translating the question. The following is an answer given to a Scythian:

Morphi Ebargulis Chnenchichrane - he should die.

Another oracle to some one who neither came nor existed was in prose. ‘Return the way you earnest,’ it ran; ‘for he that sent you has this day been slain by his neighbour Diocles, with aid of the robbers Magnus, Celer, and Bubalus, who are taken and in chains.’

I must give you one or two of the answers that fell to my share. I asked whether Alexander was bald, and having sealed it publicly with great care, got a night oracle in reply:

Malach Attis was different from Sabardalachus[1].

Another time I did up the same question — What was Homer’s birthplace?[2]— in two packets given in under different names. My servant misled him by saying when asked what he came for, a cure for lung trouble; so the answer to one packet was:

With cytmis[3] I command you to anoint,
And fair Latona's dew[4] —

As for the other packet, he got the information that the sender was inquiring whether the land or the sea route to Italy was preferable. So he answered, without much reference to Homer:

Fare not by sea; land-travel meets your need.

[1] Malach Attis was different from Sabardalachus | Here Lucian does not sufficiently explain the fact, so as to make it intelligible to his readers. Some servant sent to Alexander had probably posed this question to him, viz. Were Malach Attis and Sabardalachus, two obscure kings of some distant region, one and the same person? Alexander mistaking this question for Lucian's gives the reader this answer, which by the bye, does not prove that he frequently sent answers to one question, which properly belonged to another. A circumstance that might happen to any man in the hurry of business, just the same mistake is made with regard to his question about Homer.⁵³⁾
[2] What was Homer's birthplace? | Part of the famous Homeric Question - concerning by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed.
[3] cytmis | Bear's grease.⁵⁴⁾
[4] Latona's dew | Latona is put for Artemis or the moon; the dew must be gathered whilst the moon shines. This superstition gives the oracle an air of solemnity.⁵⁵⁾

I laid a good many traps of this kind for him; here is another. I asked only one question, but wrote outside the packet in the usual form, So-and-so’s eight Queries, giving a fictitious name and sending the eight shillings. Satisfied with the payment of the money and the inscription on the packet, he gave me eight answers to my one question. This was, When will Alexander’s imposture be detected? The answers concerned nothing in heaven or earth but were all silly and meaningless together. He afterwards found out about this, and also that I had tried to dissuade Rutilianus both from the marriage and from putting any confidence in the oracle; so he naturally conceived a violent dislike for me. When Rutilianus once put a question to him about me, the answer was:

Night-haunts and foul debauch are all his joy.[1]

[1] Night-haunts and foul debauch are all his joy | If this was Lucian's general character (which is not impossible) however candid it may be deemed, it was surely not altogether prudent thus to let posterity into the secret.⁵⁶⁾

It is true his dislike was quite justified. On a certain occasion, I was passing through Abonoteichos, with a spearman and a pikeman whom my friend the governor of Cappadocia[1] had lent me as an escort on my way to the sea. Ascertaining that I was the Lucian he knew of, he sent me a very polite and hospitable invitation. I found him with a numerous company; by good luck, I had brought my escort. He gave me his hand to kiss according to his usual custom. I took hold of it as if to kiss, but instead bestowed on it a sound bite that must have come near disabling it. The company, who were already offended at my calling him Alexander instead of Prophet, were inclined to throttle and beat me for sacrilege. But he endured the pain like a man, checked their violence, and assured them that he would easily tame me, and illustrate Glycon’s greatness in converting his bitterest foes to friends. He then dismissed them all, and argued the matter with me: he was perfectly aware of my advice to Rutilianus; why had I treated him so, when I might have been preferred by him to great influence in that quarter? By this time I had realized my dangerous position, and was only too glad to welcome these advances; I presently went my way in all friendship with him. The rapid change wrought in me greatly impressed the observers.

[1] Cappadocia | An arid region in central Anatolia.

When I intended to sail, he sent me many parting gifts and offered to find us (Xenophon and me, that is; I had sent my father and family on to Amastris) a ship and crew — which offer I accepted in all confidence. When the passage was half over, I observed the master in tears arguing with his men, which made me very uneasy. It turned out that Alexander’s orders were to seize and fling us overboard; in that case, his war with me would have been lightly won. But the crew were prevailed upon by the master’s tears to do us no harm. ‘I am sixty years old, as you can see,’ he said to me; ‘I have lived an honest blameless life so far, and I should not like at my time of life, with a wife and children too, to stain my hands with blood.’ And with that preface, he informed us what we were there for, and what Alexander had told him to do.

He landed us at Aegiale[1], of Homeric fame, and thence sailed home. Some Bosphoran[2] envoys happened to be passing, on their way to Bithynia with the annual tribute from their king Eupator[3]. They listened kindly to my account of our dangerous situation, I was taken on board, and reached Amastris safely after my narrow escape. From that time it was war between Alexander and me, and I left no stone unturned to get my revenge. Even before his plot I had hated him, revolted by his abominable practices, and I now busied myself with the attempt to expose him; I found plenty of allies, especially in the circle of Timocrates the Heracleot[4] philosopher. But Avitus, the then governor of Bithynia and Pontus, restrained me, I may almost say with prayers and entreaties. He could not possibly spoil his relations with Rutilianus, he said, by punishing the man, even if he could get clear evidence against him. Thus arrested in my course, I did not persist in what must have been, considering the disposition of the judge, a fruitless prosecution.

[1] Aegiale | An ancient town on the island of Amorgos. Amorgos is in the central portion of the Aegean.
[2] Bosphorus | An ancient Greco-Scythian state located in eastern Crimea.
[3] Eupator | Reigned as Bosporan King from 153 until his death in 174.
[4] Heracleot | City on the Black Sea.

Among instances of Alexander’s presumption, a high place must be given to his petition to the Emperor: the name of Abonoteichos was to be changed to Ionopolis[1]; and a new coin was to be struck, with a representation on the obverse of Glycon, and, on the reverse, Alexander bearing the garlands proper to his paternal grandfather Asclepius, and the famous scimetar of his maternal ancestor Perseus.

[1] Ionopolis | There are extant medals of Antoninus Pius with the serpent and Glycon upon them and others of Lucius Aurelius Verus an inscription.
[2] Antonius Pius medal⁵⁷⁾:

[3] Lucius Aurelius Verus coin⁵⁸⁾:

He had stated in an oracle that he was destined to live to a hundred and fifty, and then die by a thunderbolt[1]; he had in fact, before he reached seventy, an end very sad for a son of Podalirius, his leg mortifying from foot to groin and being eaten of worms; it then proved that he was bald[2], as he was forced by pain to let the doctors make cooling applications to his head, which they could not do without removing his wig.

[1] die by a thunderbolt | An allusion to Alexander's own prophecy concerning himself in verse.⁵⁹⁾
[2] bald | A circumstance which Lucian, we find by the question proposed to him a little before, had come to the knowledge of.⁶⁰⁾

So ended Alexander’s heroics; such was the catastrophe of his tragedy; one would like to find a special providence in it, though doubtless, chance must have the credit. The funeral celebration was to be worthy of his life, taking the form of a contest — for possession of the oracle. The most prominent of the impostors his accomplices referred it to Rutilianus’s arbitration which of them should be selected to succeed to the prophetic office and wear the hierophantic oracular garland. Among these was numbered the grey-haired physician Paetus, dishonouring equally his grey hairs and his profession. But Steward-of-the-Games Rutilianus sent them about their business ungarlanded and continued the defunct in possession of his holy office.

My object, dear friend, in making this small selection from a great mass of material has been twofold. First, I was willing to oblige a friend and comrade who is for me the pattern of wisdom, sincerity, good humour, justice, tranquillity, and geniality. But secondly I was still more concerned (a preference which you will be very far from resenting) to strike a blow for Epicurus, that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him. Yet I think casual readers too may find my essay not unserviceable, since it is not only destructive but, for men of sense, constructive also.