LUCIAN

True History, Lucian''s best-known and most entertaining work, is a parody of the tall stories of fantastic journeys narrated by famous poets and historians. With his trademark wit and humour, Lucian informs his readers that he means to tell nothing but lies and impossibilities, and warns them not to believe a word he says. The result is a comical masterpiece that influenced Western literature throughout the centuries, and works such as Gulliver''s Travels and The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Lucius, or the Ass, a satirical novel charting the adventures of a young man who has been transformed into a donkey, is usually attributed to Lucian and is thought to be a source of Apuleius''s Golden Ass. Contains an introduction by Paul Turner and illustrations by Hellmuth Weissenborn

One of the best written and most amusing treatises of antiquity is Lucians True History, forming a rather long narrative in two books, which suggested Swifts Gullivers Travels, Rabelaiss Voyage of Pantagruel and Cyrano de Bergeracs Journey to the Moon. It is composed, the author tells us in a brief introduction, not only as a pastime and a diversion from severer studies, but avowedly as a satire on the poets and logographers who had written so many marvellous tales. He names Ctesias and Homer; but Hellanicus and Herodotus appear to have been in his mind. The only true statement in his History, he wittily says, is that it contains nothing but lies from beginning to end. The main purport of the story is to describe a voyage to the moon. He set out, he tells us, with fifty companions, in a well-provisioned ship, from the "Pillars of Hercules," intending to explore the western ocean. After eighty days rough sailing they came to an island on which they found a Greek inscription, "This was the limit of the expedition of Heracles and Dionysus"; and the visit of the wine-god seemed attested by some miraculous vines which they found there. After leaving the island they were suddenly carried up, ship and all, by a whirlwind into the air, and on the eighth day came in sight of a great round island shining with a bright light, and lying a little above the moon. In a short time they are arrested by a troop of gigantic "horse-vultures" and brought as captives to the "man in the moon," who proves to be Endymion. He is engaged in a war with the inhabitants of the sun, which is ruled by King Phaethon, the quarrel having arisen from an attempt to colonize the planet Venus (Lucifer). The voyagers are enlisted as "Moonites," and a long description follows of the monsters and flying dragons engaged in the contest. A fight ensues, in which the slaughter is so great that the very clouds are tinged with red (p. 84). The long description of the inhabitants of the moon is extremely droll and original. After descending safely into the sea, the ship is swallowed by a huge "sea serpent" more than 100 miles long. The adventures during the long confinement in the creatures belly are most amusing; but at last they sail out through the chinks between the monsters teeth, and soon find themselves at the "Fortunate Islands." Here they meet with the spirits of heroes and philosophers of antiquity, on whom the author expatiates at some length. The tale comes to an abrupt end with an allusion to Herodotus in the promise that he "will tell the rest in his next books."

Editor: Henry Morley / Translator: Thomas Francklin

Translator: Ioannis Kondylakis

Translator: Ioannis Kondylakis

A True Story Lucian - Lucian of Samosata (125c.180) was a Greek satirist of Syrian or Assyrian extraction, and True History is perhaps his most well-known tale. In this tale, the protagonist visits the Moon, meets extraterrestrial creatures, and takes part in interplanetary warfare. This piece of fantastical fiction parodies many works such as Homers Odyssey, and is certainly a contender for the title of earliest science fiction story.

The Works of Lucian of Samosata Lucian - The Works of Lucian of Samosata Volume 01,02,03 Complete. - The Vision, A Literary Prometheus, Nigrinus, Trial in the Court of Vowels, Timon the Misanthrope, Prometheus on Caucasus, Dialogues of the Gods, Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, Dialogues of the Dead, Menippus, Charon, Of Sacrifice, Sale of Creeds, The Fisher, Voyage to the Lower World, The Dependent Scholar, Apology for The Dependent Scholar, A Slip of the Tongue in Salutation, Hermotimus, or the Rival Philosophies, Herodotus and Aetion, Zeuxis and Antiochus, Harmonides, The Scythian, The Way to Write History, The True History, The Tyrannicide, The Disinherited, Phalaris, I, Phalaris, II, Alexander the Oracle-Monger, Of Pantomime, Lexiphanes, Life of Demonax, A Portrait-Study, Defence of the Portrait-Study, Toxaris: A Dialogue of Friendship, Zeus Cross-Examined, Zeus Tragoedus, The Cock, Icaromenippus, an Aerial Expedition, The Double Indictment, The Parasite, a Demonstration that Sponging is a Profession, Anacharsis, a Discussion of Physical Training, Of Mourning, The Rhetoricians Vade Mecum, The Liar, Dionysus, an Introductory Lecture, Heracles, an Introductory Lecture, Swans and Amber, The Fly, an Appreciation, Remarks Addressed to an Illiterate Book-Fancier, Slander, a Warning, The Hall, Patriotism, Dipsas, the Thirst-Snake, A Word with Hesiod, The Ship: Or, the Wishes, Dialogues of the Hetaerae, The Death of Peregrine, The Runaways, Saturnalia, Cronosolon, Saturnalian Letters, A Feast of Lapithae, Demosthenes, The Gods in Council, The Cynic, The Purist PurizedABOUT THE AUTHOR:Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature. Although he wrote solely in Greek, mainly Attic Greek, he was ethnically Syrian. Lucian was also one of the earliest novelists in Western civilization. In A True Story, a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodied some fantastic tales told by Homer in the Odyssey and some feeble fantasies that were popular in his time. He anticipated "modern" fictional themes like voyages to the moon and Venus, extraterrestrial life and wars between planets, nearly two millennia before Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. His novel is widely regarded as an early, if not the earliest science fiction work.

The Syrian Goddess Lucian - On the Syrian Goddess is a Greek treatise of the second century AD which describes religious cults practiced at the temple of Hierapolis Bambyce, now Manbij, in Syria. The work is written in a Herodotean-style of Ionic Greek, and has been traditionally ascribed to the Greek essayist Lucian of Samosata.

The Mimes of the Courtesans Lucian - A collection of fifteen erotic stories based Lucian (2nd Century A.D. Greece), with numerous erotic illustrations, in a Beardsley style of art deco, by Charles Cullen. These are tales so descriptive of one phase of Greek life, discussed with the frankness of one not immoral, but influenced by a system of morals that finds everything that is natural both beautiful and good.

Translator: Ioannis Kondylakis