Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  But the Greeks relate many other fabulosities — which I do not credit at all. For how doth it consist with piety to believe that Aeneas was the son of Venus, Minos of Jupiter, Ascalaphus of Mars, or Autolycus of Mercury? Nay, these were each and all divinely favoured, and at their birth one of them was under the regard of Venus, another of Jupiter, another of Mars. For what powers soever are in their proper houses at the moment of birth into this life, those powers like unto parents make men answerable to them in all respects, in complexion, in figure, in workes, and in humour. So Minos became a king because Jupiter was in his ascendancy, Aeneas fair by the will of Venus, and Autolycus a theef, whose theevery came to him from Mercury.

  Moreover, it is not true, neither, that Jupiter put Saturn in chaînes or threw him into Tartarus or otherwise mistreated him as men credit. Nay, Saturn moveth in the extream orbe, far away from us, and his motion is sluggish and not easy to be apprehended ocularly by human kind, whence they say that he holdeth still as if fettered; and the vast abyss of the ayr is called Tartarus.

  ’Tis chiefly from the verses of Homer the poet and of Hesiod that we may learn that antiquity holdeth with the astrologers. When he describeth the chain of Jupiter and the kine of the Sun, which I conceive to be daies, and the cities that Vulcan made upon the shield, and the choir, and the vineyard ... All that he hath said of Venus and of Mars his passion, is also manifestly composed from no other source than this science. Indeed, it is the conjunction of Venus and Mars that createth the poetry of Homer. And in other verses he distinguished the duties of each, saying unto Venus, “Nay, be it thine to control the delightsome duties of wedlock,” and anent those of warfare, “These shall all be the care of impetuous Mars and Minerva.”

  Discerning all these things, the ancients had divination in very great use and counted it no parergy, but would found no cities, invest themselves with no ramparts, slay no men, wed no women, untill they had been advised in all particulars by diviners. And certainly their oracles were not aloof from astrology, but at Delphi a virgin hath the office of prophet in token of the celestial Virgin, and a serpent giveth voice beneath the tripod because a Serpent giveth light among the stars, and at Didymi also the oracle of Apollo hath its name, methinks, from the heavenly Twins.

  So firmly did they believe divination a thing most sacred, that when Ulysses, wearied of wandering, took a phansie to learn the truth as touching his affaires, he went off unto Hell, not “to behold dead men and a land that is joyless,” but because he would come to speech with Tiresias. And when he was come to the place whereunto Circe directed him, and had dug his pit and slain his sheep, although many dead that were by, and amongst them his own mother, were fain to drink of the blood, he suffered none of them, not even his very mother, until he had wet the throstle of Tiresias and constrained him to deliver the prophecy, verily enduring to behold his mother’s shadow athirst.

  For the Spartans, Lycurgus drew from the skye his ordering of their whole polity and made it their law never to leave their country, even to go to the wars, before the moon should be at her full, for he conceited that the potency of the moon is not the same when she waxeth and when she waneth, and that all things are subject unto her sway. The Arcadians, however, and none but they, would have naught of this and yeelded no honour unto astrologie; and in their folly they affirm that they are older than the moon.

  “Whereas our forbears were so mightily enamoured of divination, among this generation there be some who say that it is an impossibility for mankind to conceive a useful purpose of astrologie. It is neither credible, say they, nor truthful, and Mars and Jupiter do not move in the skye for our sake, but are nothing at all solicitous of the affairs of men, wherewith they have naught in common, but accomplish their courses independently, through a necessitude of revolving. And others affirm that astrologie, although not untruthful, is unprofitable, insomuch as divination will not alter that which draweth nigh by decree of the fates.

  To both these opinions I may answer that although the stars do verily absolve their own course in the skye, none the less as a parergy or incidental of their motion each event among us cometh to pass. Or will you have it that although if a horse run or birds or humans move, pebbles are flung up and strawes set astir by the wind of their motion, yet the gyration of the stars bringeth naught else to pass? And that whereas from a little fire an effluxion cometh to us, although the fire burneth not for our sake at all and is not a whit sollicitous that we be warmed, yet from the stars we receive no effluxion whatever? Furthermore, astrologie is indeed impotent to convert bad into good, or to effect mutation in any of the effluents, yet is it profitable to those that employ it, in so much as the good, when they know that it is to come, delighteth them long beforehand, while the bad they accept readily, for it cometh not upon them unawares, but in vertue of contemplation and expectance is deemed easie and light. That is my opinion in the matter of astrology.

  AMORES — Ἔρωτες

  Translated by M. D. Mcleod

  Although there is an apparent reference to Affairs of the Heart in Essays in Portraiture, c. 4, it is obvious from the style of this dialogue that the author is not Lucian but an imitator. When it was written is uncertain, but the reference to the decaying conditions of the cities of Lycia in c. 7 perhaps suggests a date some time after the invasion of the Goths and of Sapor, i.e. not earlier than the last quarter of the third century a.d. On the other hand, Rhodes still seems to be prosperous, though we know that it suffered an earthquake in the middle of the fourth century a.d., and Justinian Codex 1.40.6 suggests that it had lost its prosperity by 385 a.d. The most probable date for the dialogue, therefore, is the early fourth century a.d.

  Though I have adopted Harmon’s attractive title “Affairs of the Heart”, it is perhaps misleading and a more accurate rendering would be The Two Types of Love. For an account of the various facets of homosexual and heterosexual love among the Greeks see Love in Ancient Greece (translated by J. Cleugh from the French of R. Flacelière).

  AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

  LYCINUS

  1. Theomnestus, my friend, since dawn your sportive talk about love has filled these ears of mine that were weary of unremitting attention to serious topics. As I was parched with thirst for relaxation of this sort, your delightful stream of merry stories was very welcome to me. For the human spirit is too weak to endure serious pursuits all the time, and ambitious toils long to gain some little respite from tiresome cares and to have freedom for the joys of life. This morning I have been quite gladdened by the sweet winning seductiveness of your wanton stories, so that I almost thought I was Aristides being enchanted beyond measure by those Milesian Tales, and I swear by those Loves of yours that have found so broad a target that I am indeed sorry that you’ve come to the end of your stories. If you think this is but idle talk on my part, I beg you in the name of Aphrodite herself, if you’ve omitted mention of any of your love affairs with a lad or even with a girl, coax it forth with the aid of memory. Besides we are celebrating a festival today and sacrificing to Heracles. You know well enough, I’m sure, how impetuous that god was where love was concerned, and so I think he’ll be most delighted to receive your stories by way of an offering.

  THEOMNESTUS

  2. You would find it quicker, my dear Lycinus, to count me the waves of the sea or the flakes of a snowstorm than to count my loves. For I for my part think that their quiver has been left completely empty and, if they choose to fly off in quest of one more victim, their weaponless right arms will be laughed to scorn. For, almost from the time when I left off being a boy and was accounted a young man, I have been beguiled by one passion after another. One Love has ever succeeded another, and almost before I’ve ended earlier ones later Loves begin. They are veritable Lernean heads appearing in greater multiplicity than on the self-regenerating Hydra, and no Iola’s can help against them. For one flame is not extinguished by another. There dwells in my eyes so nimble a gadfly that it pounces on any and every beauty as its pre
y and is never sated enough to stop. And I am always wondering why Aphrodite bears me this grudge. For I am no child of the Sun, nor am I puffed up with the insolence of the Lemnian women or the boorish contempt of Hippolytus that I should have provoked this unceasing wrath on the part of the goddess.

  LYCINUS

  3. Stop this affected and unpleasant play-acting, Theomnestus. Are you really annoyed that Fortune has allotted you the life you have? Do you think it a hardship that you associate with women at their fairest and boys at the flower of their beauty? But perhaps you’ll actually need to take purges for so unpleasant an ailment. For you do suffer shockingly, I must say. Why won’t you get all this nonsense out of your system and think yourself fortunate that god has not given you for your lot squalid husbandry or the wanderings of a merchant or a soldier’s life under arms? But your interests are in the oily wrestling-schools, in resplendent clothes that shed luxury right down to your feet, and in seeing that your hair is fashionably dressed. The very torment of your amorous yearnings delights you and you find sweetness in the bite of passion’s tooth. For when you have tempted you hope, and when you have won your suit you take your pleasure, but get as much pleasure from future joys as from the present. Just now at any rate, when you were going through in Hesiodic fashion the long catalogue of your loves from the beginning, the merry glances of your eyes grew meltingly liquid, and, giving your voice a delicate sweetness so that it matched that of the daughter of Lycambes, you made it immediately plain from your very manner that you were in love not only with your loves but also with their memory. Come, if there is any scrap of your voyage in the seas of love that you have omitted, reveal everything, and make your sacrifice to Heracles complete and perfect.

  THEOMNESTUS

  4. Heracles is a devourer of oxen, my dear Lycinus, and takes very little pleasure, they say, in sacrifices that have no savoury smoke. But we are honouring his annual feast with discourse. Accordingly, as my narratives have continued since dawn and lasted too long, let your Muse, departing from her customary seriousness, spend the day in merriment along with the god, and, as I can see you incline to neither type of passion, prove yourself, I beg, an impartial judge. Decide whether you consider those superior who love boys or those who delight in womankind. For I who have been smitten by both passions hang like an accurate balance with both scales in equipoise. But you, being unaffected by either, will choose the better of the two by using the impartial judgement of your reason. Away with all coyness, my dear friend, and cast now the vote entrusted to you in your capacity as judge of my loves.

  LYCINUS

  5. My dear Theomnestus, do you imagine that my narratives are a matter of sport and laughter? No, they promise something serious too. I at any rate have undertaken this task on the spur of the moment, because I’ve known it to be far from a laughing matter ever since the time I heard two men arguing heatedly with each other about these two types of love, and I still have the memory of it ringing in my ears. They were opposites, not only in their arguments but in their passions, unlike you who, thanks to your easy-going spirit, go sleepless and earn double wages, “One as a herdsman of cattle, another as tender of white flocks.” On the contrary, one took excessive delight in boys and thought love of women a pit of doom, while the other, virgin of all love of males, was highly susceptible to women. So I presided over a contest between these two warring passions and found the occasion quite indescribably delightful. The imprint of their words remains inscribed in my ears almost as though they had been spoken a moment ago. Therefore, putting aside all pretexts for being excused this task, I shall retail to you exactly what I heard the two of them say.

  THEOMNESTUS

  Well, I shall get up from here and sit facing you, “waiting the time when Aeacus’ son makes an end of his singing.” But you must unfold for us in song the old and glorious lays of the contest of loves.

  LYCINUS

  6. I had in mind going to Italy and a swift ship had been made ready for me. It was one of the doublebanked vessels which seem particularly to be used by the Liburnians, a race who live along the Ionian Gulf. After paying such respects as I could to the local gods and invoking Zeus, God of Strangers, to assist propitiously in my expedition to foreign parts, I left the town and drove down to the sea with a pair of mules. Then I bade farewell to those who were escorting me, for I was followed by a throng of determined scholars who kept talking to me and parted with me reluctantly. Well, I climbed on to the poop and took my seat near the helmsman. We were soon carried away from land by the surge of our oars and, since we had very favourable breezes astern, we raised the mast from the hold and ran the yard up to the masthead. Then we let all our canvas down over the sheets and, as our sail gently filled, we went whistling along just as loud, I fancy, as an arrow does, and flew through the waves which roared around our prow as it cut through them.

  7. But it isn’t the time to describe at any length the events serious or light of the intervening coastal voyage. But, when we had passed the Cilician seaboard and were in the gulf of Pamphylia, after passing with some difficulty the Swallow Islands, those fortune-favoured limits of ancient Greece, we visited each of the Lycian cities, where we found our chief pleasure in the tales told, for no vestige of prosperity is visible in them to the eye. Eventually we made Rhodes, the island of the Sun-God, and decided to take a short rest from our uninterrupted voyaging.

  8. Accordingly our oarsmen hauled the ship ashore and pitched their tents nearby. I had been provided with accommodation opposite the temple of Dionysus, and, as I strolled along unhurriedly, I was filled with an extraordinary pleasure. For it really is the city of Helius with a beauty in keeping with that god. As I walked round the porticos in the temple of Dionysus, I examined each painting, not only delighting my eyes but also renewing my acquaintance with the tales of the heroes. For immediately two or three fellows rushed up to me, offering for a small fee to explain every story for me, though most of what they said I had already guessed for myself.

  9. When I had now had my fill of sightseeing and was minded to go to my lodgings, I met with the most delightful of all blessings in a strange land, old acquaintances of long standing, whom I think you also know yourself, for you’ve often seen them visiting us here, Charicles a young man from Corinth who is not only handsome but shows some evidence of skilful use of cosmetics, because, I imagine, he wishes to attract the women, and with him Callicratidas, the Athenian, a man of straightforward ways. For he was pre-eminent among the leading figures in public speaking and in this forensic oratory of ours. He was also a devotee of physical training, though in my opinion he was only fond of the wrestling-schools because of his love for boys. For he was enthusiastic only for that, while his hatred for women made him often curse Prometheus. Well, they both saw me from a distance and hurried up to me overjoyed and delighted. Then, as so often happens, each of them clasped me by the hand and begged me to visit his house. I, seeing that they were carrying their rivalry too far, said, “Today, Callicratidas and Charicles, it is the proper thing for both of you to be my guests so that you may not fan your rivalry into greater flame. But on the days to follow — for I’ve decided to remain here for three or four days — you will return my hospitality by entertaining me each in turn, drawing lots to decide which of you will start.”

  10. This was agreed, and for that day I presided as host, while on the next day Callicratidas did so, and after him Charicles. Now, even when they were entertaining me, I could see concrete evidence of the inclinations of each. For my Athenian friend was well provided with handsome slave-boys and all of his servants were. pretty well beardless. They remained with him till the down first appeared on their faces, but, once any growth cast a shadow on their cheeks, they would be sent away to be stewards and overseers of his properties at Athens. Charicles, however, had in attendance a large band of dancing girls and singing girls and all his house was as full of women as if it were the Thesmophoria, with not the slightest trace of male presence except that her
e and there could be seen an infant boy or a superannuated old cook whose age could give even the jealous no cause for suspicion. Well, these things were themselves, as I said, sufficient indications of the dispositions of both of them. Often, however, short skirmishes broke out between them without the point at issue being settled. But, when it was time for me to put to sea, at their wish I took them with me to share my voyage, for they like me were minded to set out for Italy.

  11. Now, as we had decided to anchor at Cnidus to see the temple of Aphrodite, which is famed as possessing the most truly lovely example of Praxiteles’ skill, we gently approached the land with the goddess herself, I believe, escorting our ship with smooth calm waters. The others occupied themselves with the usual preparations, but I took the two authorities on love, one on either side of me, and went round Cnidus, finding no little amusement in the wanton products of the potters, for I remembered I was in Aphrodite’s city. First we went round the porticos of Sostratus and everywhere else that could give us pleasure and then we walked to the temple of Aphrodite. Charicles and I did so very eagerly, but Callicratidas was reluctant because he was going to see something female, and would have preferred, I imagine, to have had Eros of Thespiae instead of Aphrodite of Cnidus.