Such is the state of matters on board your ship, most sapient Timokles; whence those innumerable shipwrecks. Now if any captain were in command, and observed and ordered each particular thing; in the first place, he would not be ignorant who are the good, and who the bad among the ship's company; in the next place, he would suitably distribute to each his proper post-the better place, up above by his side, to the better men, and the lower place to the inferior; and some of the superior men he would admit to his own table, and appoint them to be of his council; and of the sailors, the most zealous would have been appointed to the care of the forepart of the vessel, or to the captaincy of the forecastle,' or, certainly, in a place above the rest: while the sluggish and negligent would be corrected a dozen times in the day with the rope's end about his shoulders. So, admirable Sir, this simile of yours of the Ship is in some danger of being completely wrecked, from having chanced upon this incompetent captain.

Momus. This contest proceeds swimmingly for Damis now, and he is being borne onwards full sail to victory.

Zeus. Rightly do you conjecture, Momus, and as for Timokles, he devises no firm and consistent method of argument: but these commonplace and vulgar proofs he pumps out one after the other, all only to be easily overturned.

Timokles. Then, since my comparison of the ship appears to you to be of no such great weight, listen now to the "sacred anchor,' as the proverb has it, which you will not shatter by any possible means.

Zeus (all attention). Whatever in the world is he going to say, then?

Timokles. Well, you shall see if I put these arguments into syllogistic sequence, and if you can overturn them anyhow. If there are altars there are also Gods: but there are certainly altars; there are, therefore, Gods. What do you say to that?

Τοίχου ἄρχων (usually written τοίχαρχος), lit. “ the captain of the rowers at the sides of the ship." See Suidas, sub voce, and cf. Aia). Εταίρων, 14, 3.

2

Τὴν ἱερὰν ἀγκυράν-A Greek proverb denoting the last resource or hope. Cf. Lucian, Apámɛrai, 13.

This argument," says Wieland, "is for a 'sheet-anchor' (Nothanker) not the strongest but it is by no means to be supposed that

Damis (choking with laughter). As soon as ever I have laughed my fill I will reply to you.

Timokles. But you don't seem at all likely to stop grinning. Tell me, however, whereabouts my allegation appears to you ridiculous.

Damis. It's because you don't perceive you suspended your anchor, and that, too, "the sacred one," upon a fine thread. For, in connecting the existence of the Gods with the existence of altars, you imagine you have made your anchorage secure thereupon. So, since you say you have nothing else "more sacred" than this to say, let us at once depart. Timokles. Do you confess, then, you are worsted, as you leave first?

Damis (calmly). Yes, Timokles; for you, like those who are getting the worst of it, you have sought refuge at the altars. So, by the "holy anchor," I am ready to make a treaty of peace with you this moment, with a libation upon the altars themselves, so that we may no longer wrangle on these matters.

Timokles (in a violent rage). You say this to me ironically, you plunderer of tombs,' you abominable villain, you utterly contemptible wretch, you good-for-nothing slave, you infamous hang-dog-why, don't we know who your father was, and how your mother got her living, and how you throttled your brother, and what a debauched fellow and 'corrupter of youth you are; you chief of gluttons and of shameless rascals.(As Damis is retiring)—Don't run off, pray, before you have got some reminders from me to take away with you: indeed, I am ready to slay you this very

Lucian would have put it into the mouth of Timokles, if the Stoics were not accustomed to make use of it. It is quite of a similar character and strength to the brilliant syllogism of Balbus in Cicero's De Nat. Deor. (ii. 4): quorum interpretes sunt, eos ipsos esse certe necesse est: Deorum autem interpretes sunt: Deos igitur esse fateamur."

1

Tuußwpuxe. Lit. "digger into tombs." Cf. Aristoph. Barp. 1147. The tombs, as being often the receptacles of valuable treasures, were a common and rich hunting-ground of robbers, if, at least, we may trust the Romances of the fifth and sixth centuries A. D. Hence the imprecations on desecrators of them, inscribed on many of the slabs. Slaves sometimes were set to keep guard. See Nypivos, 30. For a display of the vituperative powers of the Greek vocabulary see Aristoph. Nɛ. 444-450, and elsewhere.

moment with this potsherd here, superlative villain that you are (throwing the missile at him).

Zeus. One of them, O Gods! is running away in fits of laughter; and the other pursues him with vituperation, as he cannot endure Damis's making merry over him: indeed, he seems actually about to strike him over the head with his potsherd. And we-what are we going to do hereupon? Hermes. The comic poet appears to me to have rightly said,

"Don't own defeat, you've suffer'd then no harm."1 For, indeed, what mighty evil is it, if a few men go away convinced of these things? For those who hold the contrary opinion are sufficiently numerous-the greater part of the Greeks (the mass of the people, and the rabble), and all the non-Greek peoples.

Zeus. However, Hermes, that saying of Dareius, which he uttered in the case of Zopyrus, is exceedingly good. So, too, I myself would have wished to have one such as Damis, as an ally, rather than the possession of ten thousand Babylons.*

66

· Οὐδὲν πέπονθας δεινὸν, ἂν μὴ προσποιῇ. A fragment of Menander. Προσποιεῖσθαι, to affect not to notice," is used by Thucyd. iii. 47, and by Theophrastus in a passage in the Xaparrηpes quoted by Arnold. (Thucydides, i. 496.)

2 Zopyrus, a Persian noble in the army of Dareius besieging Babylon, having voluntarily mutilated himself in a frightful manner, fled to the enemy, pretending that he had escaped from the atrocities of the Persian king. After the betrayal and slaughter of several thousands of his countrymen-with the consent of his master-for the purpose of still further deceiving the Babylonians, he at length found his opportunity for delivering the city to the Persians. Upon which event, the despot is reported to have condescended to remark, that he would have foregone the possession of twenty Babylons rather than that his devoted slave should have inflicted so much injury upon himself. See Herod. iii. 153-160. It is evident that Lucian does not think himself bound, in every case, to repeat with the strictest accuracy the on dits of History.

THE CONVICTED ZEUS.1

[Cyniskus, a Cynic philosopher (as his name imports), encouraged by Zeus to ask a favour, protests that his request will be a very modest one and very easy to grant: he is not

1 Zevs 'EXεyxoμivos“ Zeus Convicted," "Confuted," or "CrossExamined." Of this Dialogue Wieland remarks:-" Never, probably, had any writing a more appropriate title than this, in which Jupiter, in a tête-à-tête, is forced by the straightforward and undaunted Cynic, in a way such as, probably, he had never yet experienced from any son of Earth, to confess the truth. The worst blow, to which dogmas, that are not grounded upon Reason, can be submitted, is when one holds up their mutual contradictions to the light. One spares oneself, by this means, the trouble of refutation, and can calmly see them, like the armed men sown by Kadmus, annihilate themselves. This is the spectacle which Lucian gives us, in this Dialogue, in his best manner.

"The inconsistencies of the Pagan doctrines of a Fate, of the Providence of their Gods, and of the system of Rewards and Punishments after death, appears in it in a light, by whose brilliance Jupiter himself is quite dazed and reduced to silence; or, what is still more humiliating, to so miserable a shift, that Cyniscus himself, at last, out of mere pity, and content with having deprived him, after complete overthrow in open field, of his power, his dignity, and his kingdom, and leading him in triumph mortally wounded, presents him with his life for so long as in the course of Nature it might be expected to last. The questions which he lays before Jupiter had, in fact, been already debated in the Jupiter in Tragedy, between Damis and Timokles, not to the advantage of the party of the Gods. But Lucian, as it seems, held it to be necessary to deliver a last decisive assault. Jupiter had to be driven out altogether from his last lurking-holes, and to be convicted of his wicked deeds so completely, that the most shameless sycophant must blush any longer to undertake his defence. This it is, that Lucian, as it seems to me, in this little Dialogue, in so masterly a way, and with so much fineness of touch, manages to effect, that I know no more complete example of the transformation of the antipodes of reason (as Homer expresses it) 'into earth and water.'"

P

going to petition for wealth or power, but simply for enlightenment on certain perplexing points of theology and metaphysics. He begins with a request to be informed as to the truth of the statements of Homer and Hesiod respecting the Fates, and their absolute control over human life. Zeus assures him of their omnipotence. The apparent contradictions of the Hellenic Scriptures are easily explained by the circumstance that their inspiration had not been constant: that, when those theologian-poets spoke of their own free motion, they were, like ordinary mortals, liable to error; but everything uttered by them under direct inspiration of the divinities is entirely to be received.

Cyniskus then inquires whether Zeus himself acknowledges subjection to the Fates, to Chance or Fortune (also the object of the popular Creed); and, upon the assent of the "King of Gods and men," he proceeds to quote the well-known passage in the Iliad on the "Golden Chain," and, sarcastically, remarks that the Fates themselves more justly might boast of suspending him in mid-air. Becoming more and more uneasy at every new question, Zeus professes himself to be at a loss to divine at what his interlocutor is driving. Nor is his alarm without some reason, since the Cynic next inquires the purpose of the hecatombs of slaughtered victims for the altars, and of all the costly sacrifices? Instead of direct reply, Zeus takes occasion to denounce the philosophers and sophists, and their well-known impiety. Pressed on the question of utility, he defends the sacrificial system upon the pretext of its being an outward and visible sign of respect and honour on the part of men for what is greater and nobler than themselves. To which the Cynic retorts that one of these wicked philosophers might be disposed to ask in what consists the superiority of the Gods, seeing that they are subject and subordinate to Fate: for the accident of "immortality," so far from being an advantage, retains them in everlasting servitude. Nor, if the Hellenic theology was to be believed, could it be said that all divinities are in enjoyment of so much happiness—a position which Cyniskus illustrates by some conspicuous examples. Zeus now resorts to indirect menaces, and angrily hints at some supernatural punishment of the audacious sceptic: but the philo