Next Dialogue pleaded. His dignity, his cosmic thoughts, his tragic mask have all been stolen from him. He has been forced to associate with Jest, Satire, Cynicism, Eupolis and Aristophanes, “terrible men for mocking at all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right,” finally too even with Menippus. He has been transformed into a monster not homogeneous but Centaur-like. The Syrian in reply showed the benefits which he had bestowed on Dialogue: he taught him to walk like a man, to clean up, to smile, to be yoked with Comedy. Dialogue resents that the Syrian will not indulge in endless arguments on subtle themes. The Syrian declares that he has not taken off Dialogue’s Greek cloak and put him into barbarian garb: Dialogue is still dressed in his native Greek costume. The Syrian was unanimously acquitted much to the delight of the audience. This mock-trial picturesquely portrays Lucian’s change from writing the philosophical dialogues in the style of Plato to the satiric dialogue, influenced successively by New Attic Comedy, Menippus and Old Attic Comedy.[298] Lucian here is writing an Apology for the new style of satire-dialogue which he created.
With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes now Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues is The Professor of Oratory, Nigrinus, Philosophies for Sale, The Fisherman.
In The Professor of Oratory ironic advice is given to a young man on how to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on the top of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither two roads lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an easy slope amid flowers and fountains. Two guides will present themselves to you. One, vigorous and manly, will point out to you the hard way in the footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how severe the training must be for their followers. He will wish, the simpleton, to make you model yourself on the past.
The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed, with an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can become such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance, boldness, shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and always carry a book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a few stock words, a few learned references for ornaments of your discourse. He will teach you a high singsong chant and the art of always beginning with stories from the Iliad.
Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must live fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a deuce of a fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will be fitted to be the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the winged chariot of which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out of your way, for he was defeated when once you chose the primrose path. This picture of The Perfect Rhetorician has been thought by some critics to be a personal satire of the contemporary lexicographer Pollux. However that may be, it is certainly a satire of any pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on cheap externalities and superficial training.
At another time Lucian was to satirize pseudo-philosophers as he had rhetoricians, but once, perhaps in the beginning of revolt against rhetoric, he chose to picture a noble type in the dialogue on Nigrinus, a philosopher unknown except through Lucian. His great tribute to Nigrinus may be set as a companion piece to the mocking praise of The Perfect Rhetorician. The dialogue is prefaced by an introductory letter in which Lucian tells Nigrinus that he is not carrying owls to Athens in offering him this book as if to display his use of words, but he is sending it in thanks for Nigrinus’ words. In the dialogue itself one man relates to another how by talking with Nigrinus he was made free instead of a slave, poor instead of rich. For Nigrinus praised philosophy and the freedom it gives and ridiculed what men in general exalt: wealth, fame, power, honor. Nigrinus praised Athens because there Poverty and Philosophy are foster-brothers; there life is free, noble, harmonious. Rome is the city for those who love wealth and luxury, wine and women. The Romans have given themselves over to the pleasures of the senses and have every means of gratifying them. So Nigrinus in Rome leads a life of retirement, conversing with Philosophy and with Plato, reflecting on the ridiculous rich, the parasites, the pseudo-philosophers, the will-hunters, the gourmands, the frequenters of the circus and the baths. No wonder men come to him for healing.
The tribute to Platonism here, the tribute to Epicurus in Alexander the False Prophet,[299] might tempt readers to affiliate Lucian with one or the other of these philosophical schools. But as if to forestall being labelled, in the spirit of Horace’s famous line
nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri,[300]
Lucian turns his satire on all the leading creeds of the time in his Philosophies for Sale.
Zeus orders an auction of philosophies. Hermes acts as crier and auctioneer. The buyer questions each person who is put up for sale on his knowledge, on his creed, on his use. A Pythagorean is put up first by Hermes who asks: “Who wishes to know about the harmony of the world and re-birth?” The Pythagorean attempts to expound to the buyer the catharsis of the spirit, the need of music and of geometry, the flux of the cosmos, the divinity in numbers, the transmigration of souls. An Italian bought him for a brotherhood in Magna Graecia for ten minas.