Then his master purposes to exhibit him couched with a woman (a condemned criminal) at a public festival. The scene is all set when some one comes up to Lucius and the woman at the banquet table bearing, among other flowers, roses. At last the ass has his meal of restorative flowers and becomes once more Lucius. He appeals to the magistrate for protection against those who cry he is a magician and must be killed. He informs the governor that his name is Lucius, he has a brother Gaius, both have the same two other names; that he himself is a writer of stories and his brother is an elegiac poet and a good prophet. The magistrate believing his story gives him hospitality. Lucius’ brother comes to take him home, but first Lucius thought it fitting to call on the woman who had given him her love when he was an ass. He is chagrined to find that as a man he has no charm for her! He sails with his brother to Patrae and there sacrifices to the gods who have saved him.
No other work attributed to Lucian has aroused greater controversy than Lucius or Ass. All the literature about it is reviewed in Ben Edwin Perry’s epoch-making book The Metamorphoses Ascribed to Lucius of Patrae, which conclusively proves that Lucius or Ass is an epitome of Lucian’s Metamorphoses, made by another writer. Perry analyzes Photius’ description of the lost Greek Metamorphoses with its theory of the three versions of the ass-story,[356] and proves that Photius’ one mistake was in thinking that the name Lucius of Patrae referred to an author of a third Metamorphoses, which was probably the original of Lucian’s and Apuleius’ stories: Lucius of Patrae in Lucius or Ass is the hero-narrator, not the author. Perry then with convincing logic reconstructs the probable content of the Metamorphoses of which Lucius or Ass is an epitome and with the same irrefutable reasoning discusses the nature of this original Greek novel. The basis of it was a folk-lore story of a transformation. The style was plain, the narrative rapid, the tone ironic. The narrator keeps the character of the hero of the adventures and never identifies himself with the author. The character of the hero is that of “an unique clown” with an absorbing and credulous interest in strange phenomena especially transformations. The final proof that the Metamorphoses was satirical is “the simple fact that the Eselmensch is a litterateur and an investigator of marvels.” “The generic title shows that the author regarded his story as a kind of commentary on the subject of metamorphoses, and writers who interested themselves in such things.”[357]
This author, “second century Atticist, humorist, and satirist,” can be none other than Lucian himself, for the Greek Metamorphoses is Lucianic in type, is a relaxation from serious work as is the True History; it shows the same satire of credulity that other works of Lucian (for example the Alexander) did; and it is colored by the same ironic humor. The epitome contains a striking Lucianic element although this is overlaid by philological errors. Perry also analyzes resemblances and differences between the reconstructed Metamorphoses of Lucian and Apuleius’ novel, but this discussion I shall reserve for the next chapter.
Lucius or Ass is valuable in proving that Lucian wrote not one but two romances; that in both he developed a new type of romance, the satiric; that in each he maintained the same great qualities which mark his other writings: the quest for truth, intolerance of fraud and credulity; keen observation and realistic description; condensation, rapidity, clarity; dramatic irony. The two romances also show more than any other of Lucian’s writings his brilliant imaginative powers.
A postscript to this discussion of Lucian’s satiric romances may well include an account of a novel in miniature which appears in one of his dialogues. Writing in the second century he was of course thoroughly familiar with the conventional type of the Greek romance. Though this statement might be accepted a priori, certain evidence of it is furnished by his insertion in his Toxaris of an epitome of a Scythian romance of love and adventure. The Toxaris is a Platonic dialogue written probably about A.D. 165, in Lucian’s period of transition from purely rhetorical writings to those of moral or religious satire.[358] In it a Greek Mnesippus and a Scythian Toxaris discuss friendship each giving five illustrations of famous instances in his own country. The longest one related is a Scythian romance told by Toxaris.[359] Rostovtzeff has shown that Lucian probably had in his hands a Greek romance with a Scythian background, for papyri fragments furnish incontrovertible evidence of a similar Scythian romance in Greek dating from the second century A.D.[360]
The story as told by Lucian is melodramatic. It relates the devotion of three Scythians, Macentes, Lonchates and Arsacomas, who had pledged to each other friendship for life and death in the old Scythian way of shedding some of their blood into a cup and quaffing it together. Now Arsacomas, who had gone on a mission to Leucanor, king of Bosporus, there fell madly in love at first sight with his daughter Mazaea. At a banquet when suitors were bidding for the hand of the princess with proud lists of their possessions, all Arsacomas could boast of was his two fair, brave friends. The Bosporans laughed him to scorn and the girl was awarded to Adyrmachus, who the next day was to convey his bride to the land of the Machlyans.
The outraged Arsacomas rushing home told his friends how he and their friendship had been ridiculed and the three as one man planned immediate vengeance. Lonchates promised to bring Arsacomas the head of Leucanor. Macentes was to kidnap the bride. Arsacomas was to stay at home and raise an army on the ox-hide for the war that would surely follow. All proceeded according to schedule. Arsacomas slew an ox, cut up and cooked the meat, spread the hide on the ground and sat on it with his hands held behind him. This is the greatest appeal for aid possible for a man who desires to secure help for vengeance. His friends and kinsmen coming accepted each a portion of the meat, set right foot on the hide and pledged as much aid as he could. So a goodly army was raised.
Lonchates went to Bosporus, pretending he had come as a friend to offer aid against Arsacomas’ planned invasion. King Leucanor alarmed by the news of an imminent Scythian attack was lured alone into the temple of Ares to take a secret oath of friendship with Lonchates. There Lonchates murdered him, cut off his head and escaped with it under his cloak before the guards outside knew what had happened.
Macentes too used subterfuge, for hurrying to the Machlyans he reported King Leucanor’s death, said falsely that the Bosporans called Adyrmachus as his son-in-law to be their king, and offered while Adyrmachus rode at full speed to them, to escort after him his bride Mazaea in the wagon-train, for she, he claimed, was a relative of his own. This plan worked so smoothly that Macentes, when night came on, took Mazaea from her carriage, put her on his horse with himself and galloped off with her to Arsacomas. The horse dropped dead at the end but the kidnapped bride was delivered. Then all three friends united in the battle against Adyrmachus, slew him on the field, and by nightfall had won a victory. The next day peace was negotiated. Such are the deeds of daring which Scythians perform for their friends.
In the papyrus fragments a lady in distress is weeping and lamenting in the tent of a general Eubiotus. He clears his tent because of her woe, hears her declare that she wishes she had never seen Eraseinus (apparently her lover) and prevents her attempted suicide by wresting her sword from her. She then tells Eubiotus that she is not the Amazon Themisto though she is so disguised, but a Greek girl Calligone. Here the fragments end. The only points in common with Lucian’s story are the geographical background and the name Eubiotus (in Lucian the illegitimate brother of Leucanor and an aspirant to his throne),[361] but both stories as Rostovtzeff points out look to history for characters and setting as the Ninus Romance did.