Trips to the Moon

by of Samosata Lucian

And here I must not pass over a certain wise man, whose name, however, I shall not mention; his work is lately published at Corinth, and is beyond everything one could have conceived. In the very first sentence of his preface he takes his readers to task, and convinces them by the most sagacious method of reasoning that “none but a wise man should ever attempt to write history.” Then comes syllogism upon syllogism; every kind of argument is by turns made use of, to introduce the meanest and most fulsome adulation; and even this is brought in by syllogism and interrogation. What appeared to me the most intolerable and unbecoming the long beard of a philosopher, was his saying in the preface that our emperor was above all men most happy, whose actions even philosophers did not disdain to celebrate; surely this, if it ought to be said at all, should have been left for us to say rather than himself.

Neither must we here forget that historian who begins thus: “I come to speak of the Romans and Persians;” and a little after he says, “for the Persians ought to suffer;” and in another place, “there was one Osroes, whom the Greeks call Oxyrrhoes,” with many things of this kind. This man is just such a one as him I mentioned before, only that one is like Thucydides, and the other the exact resemblance of Herodotus.

But there is yet another writer, renowned for eloquence, another Thucydides, or rather superior to him, who most elaborately describes every city, mountain, field, and river, and cries out with all his might, “May the great averter of evil turn it all on our enemies!” This is colder than Caspian snow, or Celtic ice. The emperor’s shield takes up a whole book to describe. The Gorgon’s [{35}] eyes are blue, and black, and white; the serpents twine about his hair, and his belt has all the colours of the rainbow. How many thousand lines does it cost him to describe Vologesus’s breeches and his horse’s bridle, and how Osroes’ hair looked when he swam over the Tigris, what sort of a cave he fled into, and how it was shaded all over with ivy, and myrtle, and laurel, twined together. You plainly see how necessary this was to the history, and that we could not possibly have understood what was going forward without it.

From inability, and ignorance of everything useful, these men are driven to descriptions of countries and caverns, and when they come into a multiplicity of great and momentous affairs, are utterly at a loss. Like a servant enriched on a sudden by coming into his master’s estate, who does not know how to put on his clothes, or to eat as he should do; but when fine birds, fat sows, and hares are placed before him, falls to and eats till he bursts, of salt meat and pottage. The writer I just now mentioned describes the strangest wounds, and the most extraordinary deaths you ever heard of; tells us of a man’s being wounded in the great toe, and expiring immediately; and how on Priscus, the general, bawling out loud, seven-and-twenty of the enemy fell down dead upon the spot. He has told lies, moreover, about the number of the slain, in contradiction to the account given in by the leaders. He will have it that seventy thousand two hundred and thirty-six of the enemy died at Europus, and of the Romans only two, and nine wounded. Surely nobody in their senses can bear this.

Another thing should be mentioned here also, which is no little fault. From the affectation of Atticism, and a more than ordinary attention to purity of diction, he has taken the liberty to turn the Roman names into Greek, to call Saturninus, Κρονιος , Chronius; Fronto, Φροντις, Frontis; Titianus, Τιτανιος , Titanius, and others still more ridiculous. With regard to the death of Severian, he informs us that everybody else was mistaken when they imagined that he perished by the sword, for that the man starved himself to death, as he thought that the easiest way of dying; not knowing (which was the case) that he could only have fasted three days, whereas many have lived without food for seven; unless we are to suppose that Osroes stood waiting till Severian had starved himself completely, and for that reason he would not live out the whole week.

But in what class, my dear Philo, shall we rank those historians who are perpetually making use of poetical expressions, such as “the engine crushed, the wall thundered,” and in another place, “Edessa resounded with the shock of arms, and all was noise and tumult around;” and again, “often the leader in his mind revolved how best he might approach the wall.” At the same time amongst these were interspersed some of the meanest and most beggarly phrases, such as “the leader of the army epistolised his master,” “the soldiers bought utensils,” “they washed and waited on them,” with many other things of the same kind, like a tragedian with a high cothurnus on one foot and a slipper on the other. You will meet with many of these writers, who will give you a fine heroic long preface, that makes you hope for something extraordinary to follow, when after all, the body of the history shall be idle, weak, and trifling, such as puts you in mind of a sporting Cupid, who covers his head with the mask of a Hercules or Titan. The reader immediately cries out, “The mountain [{39}] has brought forth!” Certainly it ought not to be so; everything should be alike and of the same colour; the body fitted to the head, not a golden helmet, with a ridiculous breast-plate made of stinking skins, shreds, and patches, a basket shield, and hog-skin boots; and yet numbers of them put the head of a Rhodian Colossus on the body of a dwarf, whilst others show you a body without a head, and step directly into the midst of things, bringing in Xenophon for their authority, who begins with “Darius and Parysatis had two sons;” so likewise have other ancient writers; not considering that the narration itself may sometimes supply the place of preface, or exordium, though it does not appear to the vulgar eye, as we shall show hereafter.

All this, however, with regard to style and composition, may be borne with, but when they misinform us about places, and make mistakes, not of a few leagues, but whole day’s journeys, what shall we say to such historians? One of them, who never, we may suppose, so much as conversed with a Syrian, or picked up anything concerning them in the barbers’ [{40}] shop, when he speaks of Europus, tells us, “it is situated in Mesopotamia, two days’ journey from Euphrates, and was built by the Edessenes.” Not content with this, the same noble writer has taken away my poor country, Samosata, and carried it off, tower, bulwarks, and all, to Mesopotamia, where he says it is shut up between two rivers, which at least run close to, if they do not wash the walls of it. After this, it would be to no purpose, my dear Philo, for me to assure you that I am not from Parthia, nor do I belong to Mesopotamia, of which this admirable historian has thought fit to make me an inhabitant.

What he tells us of Severian, and which he swears he heard from those who were eye-witnesses of it, is no doubt extremely probable; that he did not choose to drink poison, or to hang himself, but was resolved to find out some new and tragical way of dying; that accordingly, having some large cups of very fine glass, as soon as he had taken the resolution to finish himself, he broke one of them in pieces, and with a fragment of it cut his throat; he would not make use of sword or spear, that his death might be more noble and heroic.

To complete all, because Thucydides [{41}] made a funeral oration on the heroes who fell at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, he also thought something should be said of Severian. These historians, you must know, will always have a little struggle with Thucydides, though he had nothing to do with the war in Armenia; our writer, therefore, after burying Severian most magnificently, places at his sepulchre one Afranius Silo, a centurion, the rival of Pericles, who spoke so fine a declamation upon him as, by heaven, made me laugh till I cried again, particularly when the orator seemed deeply afflicted, and with tears in his eyes, lamented the sumptuous entertainments and drinking bouts which he should no more partake of. To crown all with an imitation of Ajax, [{42}] the orator draws his sword, and, as it became the noble Afranius, before all the assembly, kills himself at the tomb. So Mars defend me! but he deserved to die much sooner for making such a declamation. When those, says he, who were present beheld this, they were filled with admiration, and beyond measure extolled Afranius. For my own part, I pitied him for the loss of the cakes and dishes which he so lamented, and only blamed him for not destroying the writer of the history before he made an end of himself.

Others there are who, from ignorance and want of skill, not knowing what should be mentioned, and what passed over in silence, entirely omit or slightly run through things of the greatest consequence, and most worthy of attention, whilst they most copiously describe and dwell upon trifles; which is just as absurd as it would be not to take notice of or admire the wonderful beauty of the Olympian Jupiter, [{43}] and at the same time to be lavish in our praises of the fine polish, workmanship, and proportion of the base and pedestal.