d *p#$@g [***]}{40D »S smi duşkiye BOLLE PORN མ་མ EKSKUR *** 4*** KU ***: A DƏNİZƏ A Pot@psping@fejez à=754 { }}+# $v aikana-ma Cy Torte &€*• sadi **19 15. ár * w pt 14 thanks #Y *PHANIE 10% 1 - -40% Kippl-qajor ·tima ÞÕÈ}$7.95 *^* F**** 838 L60 M12 McCarthy - Lucian and Menippus : : : 4. ARTES LIBRARY THILI KELLAARNEEMADE SIT) 18172 CLAREN MER VERITAS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Somo CURIOUS به مه یل TUEBOR CIRCUMSPICE SCIENTIA RAIHAN: OF THE ke 1J/ 1 3.9 J}}'.9_J,J. $13/DS RECEIVED IN EXCHANGE FROM " DHADKAN DI ALL OF KE Library of Yale Univer- sity " $1 " ** 4 " A 858 460 MIZ LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS BARBARA P. McCARTHY 34 888 027 M/2 • == * THIS reprint is an abstract of a dissertation presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in partial fulfillment of the re- quirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. bil abo WP - 17 itemen lll 16J LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS W 1 HO should have the credit for the artistic form and~ keen humor of Lucian's satiric dialogues-Lucian or the Cynic Menippus of five centuries earlier? The tend- ency in the past twenty-five years has been to speak of them as if they were the production of a hyphenated Lucian-Menippus and to assign more than the lion's share of originality to the second member of the compound. This practice dates from the publica- tion of Rudolf Helm's Lucian und Menipp, in which after de- tailed analysis of each of the fifteen satiric dialogues he concludes that in them Lucian is a slavish imitator of Menippus, now epito- mizing Menippean originals, now fitting together pieces of his models into a new whole or again expanding single scenes from them. Nowhere, I think, does he say in so many words that the earlier satirist wrote dramatic dialogues, but this assumption underlies his whole study. It is an assumption in which he has both predecessors2 and followers. He has had followers too in his attribution of the content of Lucian's satiric dialogues to Menippus, and some of these have gone even farther than Helm, summarizing Menippus' style and views from these pieces as if they had come down to us under his name.* Some protests have been raised against this Lucian-Menippus theory," but so far as I know, no one has as yet undertaken a detailed refutation." 3 1 R. Helm, Lucian und Menipp (Teubner, 1906). Before Helm the Lucian-Menippus problem had furnished the subject for three disserta- tions: E. Wasmannsdorf, Luciani scripta ea quae ad Menippum spec- tant (Jena, 1876); E. Wildenow, De Menippo Cynico (Halae, 1881); W. Knauer, De Luciano Menippeo (Halae, 1904). 2 E.g., R. Hirzel, Der Dialog (Leipzig, 1895), I, 385. 8 E.g., J. Geffcken, Neue Jahrbücher, XXVII, 474. 4 E.g., ibid., pp. 470 ff.; A. Oltramare, Les Origines de la Diatribe Romaine (Geneva, 1926), pp. 39 f.; K. Mras, Neue Jahrbücher, XXXIII (1914), 391 ff. 5 A. M. Harmon, Lucian (Loeb edition, 1915), II, 1; F. G. Allinson, Lucian, Satirist and Artist (Boston, 1926), p. 123; W. H. Tackaberry, Lucian's Relation to Plato and the Post-Aristotelian Philosophers (To- ronto, 1930), p. 39. 6 • Terzaghi, who has recently supported Helm's view that Lucian's subject matter is drawn largely from Menippus (N. Terzaghi, Per la Storia della Satira [Turin, 1932]) protests (p. 148) against a recent study of the chronology and spirit of Lucian's writings, in which this 4 BARBARA P. McCARTHY In reopening the double question whether Lucian originated the form of his satiric dialogues and how far their content is criginal it seems to me ethical to begin by letting the author present his own side of the case, to listen to his claims of origi- nality and hear what acknowledgments of indebtedness he him- self may offer. Fortunately there are four pieces which are per- tinent, two prolaliae and two dialogues. Let us look first at the little piece which goes under the name of Prometheus Es in Verbis. It opens abruptly with the question οὐκοῦν Προμηθέα με εἶναι φής; Then, with this tribute of an ad- mirer as a starting point, Lucian gives us a charming personal essay in which, while claiming to prize other qualities above mere novelty," he at the same time stresses this novelty so much that in spite of his disclaimers it is evident he takes great pride in it. After suggesting some less flattering interpretations of the name which has been applied to him, he puts forth what he hopes is the real point of the comparison, καίτοι φαίη τις ἂν παραμυθούμενος, οὐ ταῦτα εἴκασέ σε τῷ Προμηθεῖ, ἀλλὰ τὸ καινουργὸν τοῦτο ἐπαινῶν καὶ μὴ πρός τι ἄλλο ἀρχέτυπον μεμιμημένον, ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος οὐκ ὄντων ἀνθρώπων τέως, ἐννοήσας αὐτοὺς ἀνέπλασε.8 Accepting this interpretation, he does not dispute his right to the cognomen, for he has invented a new literary form-or rather, he has com- pounded two very old ones, dialogue and comedy. Nay, he is troubled by a fear that the new juncture may not be successful, that though his two elements are beautiful in themselves, when combined they may form an unlovely prodigy, a hippocentaur; for the two forms, he explains, have never been congenial, not since the days when Socrates was mocked by Aristophanes at the Dionysiac Festival. A fear is expressed lest like Prometheus he may be convicted of deceit, of serving his audience with bones covered with fat—γέλωτα κωμικὸν ὑπὸ σεμνότητι φιλοσόφῳ. Towards the end of the prolalia he makes a very definite state- ment anent his originality—τὸ γὰρ τῆς κλεπτικῆς-καὶ γὰρ κλεπ- 9 10 influence is minimized. He does not name the work to which he refers, but it seems probable that it is Gallavotti, Luciano (Lanciano, 1932) which he names later (p. 151, n. 4) in another connection. Unfortunately I have not been able to obtain a copy of this book, but it seems probable that it is a general study without particular emphasis on the establish- ing of Lucian's originality. 7 E.g., χάριεν, Prom., 3; τὸ εὔρυθμον καὶ τὸ εὔμορφον, 4; εὐμορφίαν, 5; ἡ μίξις ἐναρμόνιος καὶ κατὰ τὸ σύμμετρον, 5. 8 Prom., 3. ⁹ Ibid., 3. 10 Ibid., 7. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 5 11 66 τικῆς ὁ θεός—ἄπαγε. τοῦτο μόνον οὐκ ἂν εἴποις ἐνεῖναι τοῖς ἡμετέροις˙ ἢ παρὰ τοῦ γὰρ ἂν ἐκλέπτομεν; εἰ μὴ ἄρα τις ἐμὲ διέ- λαθε τοιούτους πιτυοκάμπτας καὶ τραγελάφους καὶ αὐτὸς συντεθει- Kúc.¹¹ Here Lucian definitely claims to have invented that delight- ful hybrid, the comic dialogue. Shall we believe him? If Menip- pus earlier employed the form, then Riese is right in saying, Menippum aut nondum tum cognitum habens aut fraudulento silentio opprimens. ''12 Helm, who does not wish to convict Lucian of here concealing his indebtedness to Menippus since he inter- prets Piscator 36 and Bis Accusatus 33 as frank avowals of his exploitation, is forced to accept the first alternative. Lucian did not yet know Menippus. And since the so-called satiric dialogues are all in his opinion written under Menippus' influence, the assertion of novelty in yoking dialogue to comedy must refer to the minor Sophistic dialogues, the Dialogues of the Gods, the Dialogues of the Sea Divinities, and the Dialogues of the Cour- tesans. He suggests that the Prometheus may have served as an introduction to the Dialogues of the Sea after the sophist had first made trial of the form in the Dialogues of the Gods.13 This suggestion is in my opinion certainly wrong. The Dialogues of the Gods do not answer the description of the new form since they do not show the influence of comedy. But perhaps it was the Dialogues of the Courtesans that called forth the comment and discussion? They at least are unquestionably influenced by com- edy. True, but by New Comedy. And though Lucian does not say directly that it is Old Comedy which he has linked with Dialogue, his description implies it. For he describes how comedy έxλɛúale φροντιστὰς καὶ μετεωρολέσχας, how it took advantage of the li- cense of the Dionysia to bring in the philosophers ȧepoẞaтoūvтac καὶ νεφέλαις ξυνόντας, ἄρτι δὲ ψυλλῶν πηδήματα διαμετροῦντας.14 This refers clearly to the comedy of Aristophanes, whose influ- ence is not evident until the Menippean dialogues. Lucian then claims that the outer form of these dialogues originated with him —τὸ γὰρ τῆς κλεπτικῆς ἄπαγε. T The Zeuxis is another prolalia which deals with the subject of novelty vs. technique. Lucian describes how at the close of a recent reading he was tendered an enthusiastic reception by the audience. At first he was immensely flattered until he realized 11 Ibid., 7. 12 A. Riese, Varronis Saturarum Menippearum Reliquiae. (Leipzig, 1865), p. 24, n. 1. 13 R. Helm, op. cit., pp. 281 f.; p. 282, n. 1. 14 Prom., 6; cf. Aristophanes, Clouds. 6 BARBARA P. McCARTHY that the tenor of their praise was all the same: "He was so origi- nal." They couldn't imagine anything fresher or more unhack- neyed than his work. Lucian tacitly admits the justice of their remarks, but hopes that he does not deserve praise for originality alone. There are other qualities which he considers far more im- portant than novelty, which should only in his opinion wσлερ έv προσθήκης μοίρᾳ συνεπικοσμεῖν τι.15 Here again however as in the Prometheus he does admit his claim to novelty, though there is no mention of a yoking of comedy and dialogue, and the hippo- centaur that there symbolized the union is here merely the sub- ject of a painting by Zeuxis. This artist, when his picture of the Centaur Family aroused so much comment because of the unique- ness of its subject that the perfection of its technique was over- looked, angrily ordered one of his pupils to take down the paint- ing and carry it home. Lucian of course compares his experience to that of the artist and complains, οἷς δ' ἐγὼ ἐπεποίθειν οὐ πάνυ ταῦτα ἐν λόγῳ παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐστιν ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι μὲν θήλεια Ιπποκένταυ- ρος γεγραμμένη, τοῦτο μόνον ἐκπλήττονται καὶ ὥσπερ ἐστί, καινὸν καὶ τεράστιον δοκεῖ αὐτοῖς, τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα μάτην ἄρα τῷ Ζεύξιδι πεποί- Taι.16 In mentioning the centaur here Lucian has reference prob- ably not to the blending of dialogue and comedy but merely to novelty of subject matter.¹ Praise for originality of subject was naturally a thing that any Sophist or entertainer craved and Lucian disparages it only to stress its presence in his work while at the same time emphasizing his other merits. ηται. ܕ Ca Sinko dissents from the general view which places this piece in the period of the Menippean dialogues and thinks that the readings which were praised were Sophistic-the Muscae Enco- mium and the Dialogues of the Courtesans.18 On the other hand, there is a slight possibility that it may have been delivered after the Menippean period, since in the Dionysus, a prolalia written during his later years, Lucian still stresses the novelty of his subject matter.19 The Zeuxis however fits best the period when Lucian was at the height of his fame. He is quite evidently en- joying popularity with the crowd who have hailed him, he says, as "the one and only among the Greeks' '20-not merely an ad- vertising blurb, since he is talking to the same audience whose enthusiasm over his last reading has furnished the text for his 15 Zeuxis, 2. 16 Zeuxis, 12. 17 Cf. O. Schissel von Fleschenberg, Novellenkränze Lukians (Halle, 1912), p. 2. 18 T. Sinko, Eos, XIV, 125. 19 Bacchus, 5. 20 Zeuxis, 2. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 7 sermon. This popular favor seems too great for his Sophistic days, while at the time of the Dionysus his popularity had waned.21 If the Zeuxis then is to be placed, as seems likely, in the time of the Menippean dialogues, we have in it an indirect claim that their content is original. Let us look next at the Bis Accusatus which contains one of the loci classici cited to prove Lucian's debt to Menippus. Rheto- ric and Dialogue both bring suit against the Syrian, alias Lucian, for desertion and ill-treatment respectively. Rhetoric's accusa- tion contains little that is of interest in this connection. Her grievance is that the Syrian has deserted her because of an un- natural affection for Philosophy's son Dialogue. The defendant pleads guilty of desertion but offers two excuses. First, he claims that Rhetoric is no longer the modest little lady she was when Demosthenes wooed her but has become a cheap, vulgar courte- san-a thrust at contemporary rhetoric, which is also satirized in the Rhetorum Praeceptor and Pseudologistes. In further ex- tenuation of his guilt he pleads that it is only proper for him, now that he has reached the age of forty, to abandon pleading in the law courts and epideictic speeches²² in order to devote him- self to a study of philosophy in company with Dialogue. In this pair of speeches there is only one suggestion that he has done anything but adopt the traditional dialogue form, that is, when Rhetoric says, φασὶ δὲ αὐτὸν μηδὲ πρὸς τὸν ἐρώμενον τοῦτον εἰρή- νην ἄγειν ἀλλὰ οἶμαι καὶ ἐς ἐκεῖνον ὑβρίζειν.23 And when the first trial has been decided in favor of the Syrian, Dialogue takes the stand to plead that he has been very badly treated indeed. He is decidedly the son of Plato in his speech, which contains many reminiscences of his father. The Syrian, he protests bitterly, has done him great injustice. In the past he has always been revered and his province has been to reflect concerning the gods and nature and the cycle of the universe. Indeed he had been "tread- ing the air high up above the clouds where 'great Zeus in heaven driving his winged car' sweeps on" and was already "mounting on 'heaven's back'" when his tormentor took away his wings and dragged him down to the level of the common herd. "More- over he took away from me," he continues, "the respectable 21 Bacchus, 5, οἱ μὲν οὐδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀφικνοῦνται. 22 Bis Acc., 32, τοὺς ἄνδρας τοὺς δικαστὰς ἀτρεμεῖν ἐάν, τυράννων και τηγορίας καὶ ἀριστέων ἐπαίνους ἐκφυγόντα. On the second point compare the definition of neo-Sophistic themes given by Philostratus, Vit. So- phist., 481. 23 Bis Acc., 28. 8 BARBARA P. McCARTHY tragic mask that I had, and put another upon me that is comic, satyr-like and almost ridiculous. Then he unceremoniously penned me up with Jest and Satire and Cynicism and Eupolis and Aristophanes, terrible men for mocking all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right. At last he even dug up and thrust in upon me Menippus, a prehistoric dog with a very loud bark, it seems, and sharp fangs, a really dreadful dog who bites unex- pectedly because he grins when he bites. Have I not been dread- fully maltreated when I no longer occupy my proper rôle but play the comedian and the buffoon and act out extraordinary plots for him? What is most monstrous of all, I have been turned into a surprising blend, for I am neither afoot nor ahorseback, neither prose nor verse, but seem to my hearers a strange phe- nomenon made up of different elements like a Centaur. ''24 With the exception of the last point the whole accusation could be summed up thus: Platonic dialogue has been transformed into satiric dialogue; and it is the Syrian (i.e., Lucian) who is accused of making the alteration, a charge the truth of which he admits in his speech of defense.25 This passage, then, repeats the asser- tion concerning originality of form which was made in the Prometheus. Let us look at the indictment a little more closely. First, Lucian dragged Dialogue down from his lofty seat and put him on the level of the crowd; that is, dialogue, which as a me- dium of philosophical instruction had appealed only to serious students, had now been leveled to everyday subjects and made a form of entertainment for the general public. Second, he has removed from Dialogue his serious and tragic mask and fur- nished him with one that is κωμικὸν καὶ σατυρικὸν καὶ γελοῖον. Lucian employs these three adjectives again with reference to his work in the Dionysus.26 There they also refer back to the chreia of Dionysus and his attendant army, so that the word catuρikά has a double significance. But in the Bis Accusatus we seem to have little more than a heaping up of three approximate synonyms to signify comic or laughable. Next, we are told that the Syrian has introduced into dialogue σκῶμμα καὶ ἴαμβον καὶ κυνισμόν, again a heaping up of three syno- nyms, all of which signify "satire." Two of the most famous of the old comic poets, Eupolis and Aristophanes, and the Cynic 24 Bis Acc., 33. Translation by A. M. Harmon, Lucian (Loeb edition), III, 147. 25 Ibid., 34. ἐπὶ πᾶσι δὲ τὴν κωμῳδίαν αὐτῷ παρέζευξα. 26 Bacchus, 5: οἰόμενοι γὰρ σατυρικὰ καὶ γελοῖά τινα καὶ κομιδῇ κωμικὰ παρ' ἡμῶν ἀκούσεσθαι. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 9 Menippus are linked together as inspirations and sources of this satire. Eupolis and Aristophanes are described as dɛivoùc avdpac ἐπικερτομῆσαι τὰ σεμνὰ καὶ χλευᾶσαι τὰ ὀρθῶς ἔχοντα. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans had one definite word for satire in our sense but used a great many approximate synonyms to convey the idea. So ἐπικερτομῆσαι and χλευᾶσαι are synonymous in con- notation with the three words used above.27 Lucian feels that his dialogues resemble Old Comedy in their satiric element in the same sense that the Roman satirists felt themselves the successors of Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes. 28 Joined with the well known names of Eupolis and Aristopha- nes is that of the Cynic Menippus: "an ancient dog, a barking and biting fellow who bites while he grins." Satire was the field of the popular Cynic philosophers no less than of the comic poets, though in them it was usually directed at classes rather than individuals. It is interesting to notice in this connection that Marcus Aurelius in speaking of Menippus uses a derivative of the word for satire which Lucian applied to the comic poets. He cites him as a typical example of the ἐπικήρου καὶ ἐφημέρου τῶν ἀνθρώπων ζωῆς χλευασταί.29 Lucian's word picture of Menippus the Cynic is a typical description of the KUVIKOC Tрóлоc paralleled by a passage in Demetrius: πᾶν τὸ εἶδος τοῦ Κυνικού λόγου σαί- νοντι ἅμα ἔοικέ τῳ καὶ δάκνοντι. It fits perfectly the Menippus of TW the Dialogues of the Dead, whose character in these minor pieces is indistinguishable from that of Diogenes. 80 It seems strange to me that the passage we have been discuss- ing is usually interpreted as a proof that before Lucian's time Menippus used satiric dialogue. The fact that it is Dialogue him- self who complains that in the past he was dignified and revered but that now the dog Menippus has been turned loose on him would indicate rather that Menippus did not use the form. Scholars who believe in Lucian's dependence on the old Cynic interpret the word ȧvopúƐac in connection with him as a proof that in Lucian's day he was practically if not totally unknown. Lucian, in their opinion, discovered his musty rolls buried be- neath the dust of some library and after retouching some and re- hashing others gave them out to an unsuspecting world as his own. This passage, together with one in the Piscator (6), is con- 27 The word xλcuálw is applied to the satire of Old Comedy also in Prom., 6; Piscator, 25. 28 Horace, Satires, I, 4, 11. 1-8; Persius, Satires, I, 122–125. 29 M. Anton., Comm., VI, 47. 80 Demetrius, De Elocutione, 261. 10 BARBARA P. McCARTHY strued as his confession and acknowledgment of the theft. Knauer expresses this view very definitely in his introduction-"Ex his quoque verbis Menippum a Luciano expressum esse luce est clarius, praesertim cum voce ȧvopúƐac se saturas Menippeas ita, ut illius cynici aetate erant, rursus in lucem protulisse ostendere videatur Lucianus. Iam ex eo apparet Lucianum illas Menippi saturas non magnopere commutasse.'' This is an unwarranted conclusion. There are two other possible explanations of the word ávopúƐac either of which is more probable than that given above. The word may be used here in a less literal sense of an ancient classic, content and famous passages of which would be known to every schoolboy but which would not find a place on the li- brary table with the latest best-seller. It is rather in this sense that the figure is used ironically of the ancient orators in the Rhetorum Praeceptor—ἀνορύττειν ἀξιῶν λόγους πάλαι κατορω- ρυγμένους ὥς τι μέγιστον ἀγαθόν, μαχαιροποιοῦ υἱὸν καὶ ἄλλον ᾿Ατρομήτου τινὸς γραμματιστοῦ ζηλοῦν ἀξιῶν.32 On the other hand we may interpret the word even much more literally than Knauer does. Though Menippus has been dead some four hun- dred years, Lucian has of late in two dialogues, the Necyomantia and the Icaromenippus, brought him on the stage very much alive and holding converse with a friend. He may thus be very properly said to have resurrected him. It is quite possible that Lucian is here using ávopúčac in a double sense, to signify both that he has resurrected Menippus in person in his dialogues and that in these very dialogues he has drawn inspiration from his writings just as he draws inspiration from the plays of Eupolis and Aristophanes, but not to signify that he rediscovered him when completely dead and buried and exploited his find in whole- sale fashion. Indeed this very passage seems to me to prove that Menippus had not faded from memory but was known to Lu- cian's audience. Dialogue, we have seen, complains that he was penned up with Eupolis and Aristophanes. Very good! the audi- ence know these mocking, scoffing gentlemen and have recognized Lucian's indebtedness to them in past dialogues as the author expected them to. The accusation then has point and humor for the very reason that they can see its justice. But then the com- plainant continues even more bitterly to describe how he has been insulted through the digging up of Menippus. If we interpret this to mean that the Cynic, when totally forgotten by the world, was resurrected to serve as Lucian's model and pattern, it has a certain meaning for us, but would have none for the audience. 82 Rhet. Praec., 10. 81 Knauer, op. cit., p. 2. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 11 To them Menippus would be only a character of Lucian's and they would quite miss the point of Dialogue's accusation. The next point made by the prosecutor, that he is kwµwdāv kai γελωτοποιῶν καὶ ὑποθέσεις ἀλλοκότους ὑποκρινόμενος, obviously refers to a condition resultant from his enforced confinement with the comic poets and Menippus, more especially the former. The audience would be partially in the know on this point. But now comes the last and most bitter complaint of all: “I have become a wondrous mixture and am neither in prose nor in metre, but like a hippocentaur I seem a hybrid and a strange prodigy to my hearers."'s Menippus we know to have written a peculiar style in which prose and verse were used freely side by side as in his imitator Varro and to a less extent in Lucian. So to us this clearly concludes the account of the wrongs Dialogue has suffered from contamination with the old Cynic. But to listeners who knew nothing of Menippus' style it would be merely an additional isolated complaint. Are we to understand that the author was the only one who knew the relation of ideas in the passage, that it was kept a dark secret from his audience? I can- not believe it. In support of the theory of Menippus' oblivion is adduced the infrequent mention of him in literature contemporary with Lu- cian—a point which proves nothing. Lucian himself is not men- tioned at all. Furthermore, Menippus does appear on the pages of five writers contemporary with or later than Lucian,³ while except in connection with Varro his name appears only twice in earlier works.35 It is true that of the five references only two have any real significance, but that significance, I submit, is very real indeed. Aulus Gellius calls him a "clarus philosophus" and Mar- cus Aurelius' pithy characterization of him (quoted above, p. 9) shows that he at least was well acquainted with this “for- gotten" Cynic. A further indication that Menippus was no stranger to the reading public before Lucian brought him on the scene is to be 38 Here we find the figure of the hippocentaur for the third time. In the Prometheus it signified the union of comedy and dialogue, in Zeuxis strangeness of subject matter, here mixture of prose and verse. Helm, op. cit., p. 281 and n. 1, speaks as if the figure had the same signifi- cance in all three cases. 34 Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XIV, 664e; XIV, 629e f.; I, 32e; Diogenes Laertius, VI, 99-101; Eunapius, Vitae Phil., 454; Aulus Gel- lius, II, 18, 6; M. Antoninus, Comm., VI, 47. 35 Strabo, XVI, 2, 29; Meleager, Anth. Pal., VII, 417; 418. 12 BARBARA P. McCARTHY found in the introduction, or rather lack of introduction, of him in the dialogues in which he appears. Take the Necyomantia. It opens with two iambic lines: ὦ χαῖρε μέλαθρον πρόπυλά θ' ἑστίας ἐμῆς ὡς ἀσμενός σέ γ' εἶδον ἐς φάος μολών, ω and the speaker is immediately named for us by a question from the other character: οὐ Μένιππος οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ κύων; No further identification is deemed necessary. In the Icaromenippus even the tag ó kúwv is omitted. The mere mention of his name—τí taŪTA πρὸς χαρίτων, ὦ Μένιππε;——seems sufficient to acquaint the audi- ence with his identity. In the first Dialogue of the Dead we do get rather more of an introduction to him. Diogenes bids Poly- deuces extend an invitation to Menippus the Dog to join him in the lower world. He will find him, he says, in Corinth at the Craneum or Lyceum laughing at the contentious philosophers. In this description, by the way, we get a valuable hint on the char- acter of Menippean writing. Tell him, continues Diogenes, that he will laugh much more in Hades, for in life έv aµpiẞóλy ó γέλως ἦν καὶ πολὺ τὸ ‘τίς γὰρ ὅλως οἶδε τὰ μετὰ τὸν βίον' (the last very probably a quotation from Menippus). When Poly- deuces asks how he will recognize him, Diogenes gives a Cynic description of a bald old man with a ragged tribon. But until Polydeuces speaks, Diogenes apparently assumes that he will know Menippus, as Lucian assumes that he will be known to the audience. That he gets a longer introduction here than in the Necyomantia and Icaromenippus is an indication of the earlier composition of the shorter dialogue. It is the first piece in which Lucian conceives the idea of introducing the Cynic Menippus as a character. In the remaining Dialogues of the Dead he is charac- terized now as "Menippus the dog” but more often appears sim- ply as Menippus. Let us turn back after this long digression to the trial scene in Bis Accusatus where we left the Syrian about to make his reply to the charge of Dialogue. He rests his defense mainly on the plea that he has done the plaintiff a great service in pairing him with comedy and thus making him more attractive to the public. "If you want to know what really irks the reverend gentleman, it is this, that I have refused to quibble with him on abstract, sub- tle themes, on 'how many pints of pure, changeless substance God poured into the vessel in which he concocted the universe,' and 'whether rhetoric is the false counterpart of a subdivision of po- LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 13 litical science, the fourth form of parasitic occupation.' "'86 As a final argument in his own defense he pleads that he has not changed Dialogue's Greek mantle for a barbarian one, and that too when he himself is a barbarian-with pardonable pride in his Atticism.87 Closely connected in thought with this passage is the speech of Diogenes in the Piscator. Here it is the ancient philosophers on a day's leave from Hades who appear as accusers of Frankness the son of Truth, alias the Syrian, alias Lucian. Diogenes speaks for the prosecution. If we except references to the Vitarum Auctio which precipitated the philosophers' attack, his charges may be summed up thus: (1) Frankness has mocked Philosophy and satirized the philosophers just as Aristophanes and Eupolis used to do at the Dionysia, (2) he does this under the name of Philoso- phy and employs Dialogue, the lackey of the philosophers, as his assistant and spokesman, and (3) he has persuaded Menippus, an ancient comrade of the philosophers, to take part frequently in his farces (ξυγκωμῳδεῖν αὐτῷ τὰ πολλά) so that he alone does not join in the accusation since he has betrayed the commonwealth. The charge amounts to the same thing as that of Dialogue in the Bis Accusatus-Lucian has used dialogue to satirize the philoso- phers, a field that of old belonged to the comic poets, and in so doing has to some measure drawn inspiration from the writings of Menippus. Though stress is not here laid on originality, the inference is that Frankness was the first to commit such an out- rage. The reference to Menippus, in so far as it implies any more than his appearance as a character in the dialogues, suggests only a limited influence from this source and is no proof that he em- ployed the same literary form as Lucian. Let me summarize briefly the evidence we have looked at. Lu- cian definitely states several times that he has done something novel in linking comedy to dialogue. This union refers in the Prometheus no less than in the Bis Accusatus to his so-called satiric dialogues, not to his Sophistic ones. None of the passages in question is to be considered as an unmotivated assertion of originality on the part of Lucian. If they were of that sort, we might perhaps justly look on them with a little suspicion. But in the Prometheus he is deprecating the praises he has received for this very quality in order to lay claim to other technical merits. The ordinary run of his audience, we may assume, not only ad- 86 Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 35a and 41d; Gorgias, 463b, 463d, 465c. 87 Cf. the claim to be Attic made by his fellow countryman, Meleager, the follower of Menippus, Anth. Pal., VII, 417. 14 BARBARA P. McCARTHY mitted the novelty of his works but waxed enthusiastic over it. On the other hand, Rhetoric and Dialogue in the Bis Accusatus and Philosophy in the Piscator actually accuse him of it as a crime! This must reflect actual charges on the part of conserva- tive rhetoricians and philosophers, and therefore shows his origi- nality was admitted on all hands. Shall we deny what both his contemporary admirers and critics confessed? There is no evi- dence in any of the passages we have studied to prove that Menippus wrote in dialogue form. Lucian does twice acknowledge indebtedness to him, but in the same way that he acknowledges indebtedness to Eupolis and Aristophanes whom he certainly does not exploit. Nothing in the passages referred to indicates that Menippus' originals were unknown to the audience, but we should infer rather that they did know them. If they did, Lucian could not have employed them to any such extent as Helm supposes. The Zeuxis, if it belongs to this period, as seems likely, is added evidence that the content of Lucian's readings was regarded as original by his public. C This does not mean that they were not filled with rhetorical and philosophical commonplaces and stock figures of speech, or that Lucian was unwilling to borrow a motif that appealed to him wherever he found it. The ancients did not look on literary imitation in the same light that we do. To borrow ideas from the common treasury of past literature without acknowledging their source was a perfectly legitimate procedure so long as they were apt and well phrased.38 Readers took pleasure in seeing a fa- miliar gem in a new setting if it had been artistically recut. But servile imitation and actual plagiarism were frowned on. In dis- cussing the reworking of borrowed materials and motives, Stemp- linger says, "Aber wenn auch das Werkmaterial in Menge vorlag, wenn auch gemeinsame Stoffquellen und eine traditionelle Topik in gewisser Hinsicht eine unverkennbare Gleichförmigkeit in der Stoffentwickelung herbeiführte, so ist von einer wörtlichen Her- übernahme ausser in beabsichtigen Fällen, von einem blossen Abschreiben, wie es bei mittelalterlichen Autoren gang und gäbe ist, bei stilistisch ausgearbeiteten Werken nirgends die Rede.''39 And “stilistisch ausgearbeiteten Werke" Lucian's dialogues cer- tainly are. Stemplinger, in collecting sources which furnish evi- dence for the attitude of the Greeks toward plagiarism, has over- 88 See E. Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der Griechischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1912), pp. 228 ff.; G. C. Fiske, Lucilius and Horace (Madi- son, 1920), pp. 39 f., 52 ff. Cf. Lucian, Pisc., 6. 89 Stemplinger, op. cit., pp. 241 f. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 15 looked a passage in the Apologia pro Mercede Conductis in which Lucian himself indirectly shows contempt for an author who would sail under false colors. After he had accepted a secretarial post in Egypt in the pay of the Emperor, he imagines himself subjected to criticism by his friend Sabinus on the ground that he has proved traitor to views expressed some time before in the De Mercede Conductis. Sabinus is imagined to say ouk áлeikÓTA γοῦν λέγοιεν ἂν εἰ λέγοιεν ἤτοι ἄλλου του γενναίου ἀνδρὸς εἶναι τὸ βιβλίον καὶ σὲ τὸν κολοιὸν ἀλλοτρίοις πτεροῖς ἀγάλλεσθαι ο -the same simile that Horace uses when he speaks of his warn- ings to Celsus against plagiarism.ª¹ 40 There is no need to go any further into this subject, which has been so well and so thoroughly treated by Stemplinger. Our little excursus is meant simply to indicate that the opinions of the an- cients in regard to legitimate and illegitimate imitation contrib- ute a further argumentum ex probabile against the theory that Lucian actually appropriated either whole works of Menippus or large extracts from them. Stemplinger touches on another matter that is of interest to us -how much faith should one put in ancient claims of literary innovation 142 He finds that there is always some justice behind the claim, even though, as Stuart says in a recent résumé of the material, it is "seldom founded on any such exhaustive knowl- edge of preceding literary effort as modern criticism insists on.''48 True!-and Lucian, though he claims rhetorically to have been the first to make Dialogue smile, would not have denied, if pressed by a stickler for accuracy, that there had been pleasant readable dialogues before his time. He knew his Plato too well for that. But assertions of originality, though not meticulously accurate, always do have some basis even when they are unmoti- vated self-advertisements. How much more certain they are to be true in the case of Lucian where they are not spontaneous claims at all, but rather admissions of a quality for which he has been not only praised but more violently condemned. Lucian, we must conclude then, was original. He was not Μένιππος ὅλος in the period of his satirie dialogues as so many scholars would have us believe. But Lucian's own words do indi- cate some indebtedness to him. The extent of this indebtedness 40 Apologia, 4. 41 Horace, Epistles, I, 3, 11. 15–20. 42 Stemplinger, op. cit., pp. 131 ff., esp. pp. 136, 7. 48 D. R. Stuart, Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography (Berkeley, 1928), p. 102. 16 BARBARA P. McCARTHY is a delicate question, since direct evidence is almost totally lack- ing. Let us see how much we do know about Menippus' works. We have seen in Lucian's description of him that he was a Cynic satirist who γέλων ἅμα ἔδακνε, and if we examine our other ancient testimonies for light, we find clear indications in them too that Menippus was Lucian's predecessor in the field of satire. In the passage of the Meditations to which we have already re- ferred, it is obviously in this light, as a satirist, that Marcus Aurelius conceives of him, rather than as a philosopher. In re- flecting on the brevity of human life, Marcus considers the great men who have died, and recalls first the reverend philosophers— Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates-the famous generals and ty- rants, and finally αὐτῆς τῆς ἐπικήρου καὶ ἐφημέρου τῶν ἀνθρώπων ζωῆς χλευασταί, οἷον Μένιππος.44 If he had thought of him pri- marily as a philosopher, he would have included him in the list with Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Socrates. Strabo mentions among the men of Gadara Philodemus the Epicurean, Meleager, and Menippus ὁ σπουδογέλοιος.45 Here again the idea of Menippus the satirist outweighs that of Menippus the philosopher. And the same designation of serious-smiling is applied to him by Stepha- nus of Byzantium.48 When Diogenes Laertius refused to allow him the first part of the compound epithet (φέρει μὲν οὖν σπου- δαῖον οὐδέν, τὰ δὲ βιβλία αὐτοῦ πολλοῦ καταγέλωτος γέμει)47 he is undoubtedly voicing a criticism from the standpoint of the phi- losophers against whom, as we know from Lucian's first Dialogue of the Dead, part of his καταγέλως was directed—εὕροις δ᾽ ἂν αὐτὸν τῶν ἐριζόντων πρὸς ἀλλήλους φιλοσόφων καταγε- λῶντα. • The spirit of Menippus' writings, we may conclude, was sa- tiric, but what literary dress did his satire assume? Was it at all like Lucian's? There are two forms of the satiric dialogue in Lucian, the frame dialogue and the purely dramatic dialogue. Of the former type Lucian has only three examples, the Necyoman- tia and the Icaromenippus, which are narratives set in a dramatic frame, and the Symposium (of which more later)-a narrated dialogue in dramatic frame. The bulk of the satiric dialogues are dramatic, many of them of a complex form with rapid shifting 44 M. Anton., Comm., VI, 47. See above, p. 9. 45 Strabo, XVI, 2, 29. 46 Stephanus Byz. s.v. Tádapa. For the importance of Menippus it is interesting to note that he is the only one named as a native of Gadara. Even Meleager is passed over. 47 Diog. Laert., VI, 99. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 17 of scene while some like the Charon and the Jupiter Tragoedus go to the extent of using elaborate double scenery, with simul- taneous conversation on the earth and among the onlookers above. It is the dramatic dialogues which show more strongly the influ- ence of Old Comedy and which impress us as the more "novel" and “original” development. They are a Lucianic blend, and we have seen every reason to doubt that Menippus used the form. 49 To turn now to forms for Menippus' use of which we have evidence, we know that like many of the other Alexandrian writ- ers18 he employed the medium of correspondence in his 'EIOTO- λαὶ Κεκομψευμέναι ἀπὸ τοῦ τῶν Θεῶν Προσώπου. These divine letters in all probability gave Lucian his inspiration for the Epis- tolae Saturnales. But they did not give him the content, which is in part connected with the purely Roman Saturnalia, in part reminiscent of motives used in earlier satires. Helm comments on the fact that the letters contain no new and original ideas: "Man sieht, Lucian hat sich ausgeschrieben und weiss auch einem neuen Motiv wie es die Korrespondenz hier ist, kaum viel neue Seiten abzugewinnen.''50 But if it were true that Lucian in other in- stances foisted revised Menippeans on his audience, why should he not have done so with the epistles? It is an excellent refuta- tion of the whole Lucian-Menippus theory, I think, that the Epistolae Saturnales, one of the few pieces which almost cer- tainly take their inspiration from a Menippean writing, do take merely their inspiration and nothing more. In addition to the epistolary form Menippus employed the "convivium," probably in at least two pieces. Athenaeus men- tions his Symposium51 and the single fragment preserved of his Arcesilaus-There was a drinking party of some revellers, and Lacedaemonian woman ordered some one to bring in the µattúŋ, and immediately little partridges were brought in and roast geese and soft cheese cakes''52-certainly sounds as if that piece too were a "convivium." The phrase àλμóпоTIC й Múνdoc 58 quoted by Athenaeus without locus may possibly come from either the Symposium or the Arcesilaus. From the fact that Menippus is known to have written a Sym- posium the conclusion has frequently been drawn that dialogue 48 On use of the "epistle" in Alexandrian period see Hirzel, Der Dialog., I, 353 ff. 49 Diog. Laert., VI, 101. 51 Athenaeus, XIV, 629e f. 58 Ibid., I, 32e. 50 Helm, op. cit., p. 225. 52 Ibid., XIV, 664e. 18 BARBARA P. McCARTHY "" was his usual literary form.54 But ordinary dialogue was used very little in the Alexandrian period while the "symposium' stood with the letter and "diatribe" high in popular favor.55 It was employed by several writers whose other literary activity lay outside the dialogue field. Aristoxenus for example wrote Zuuu- ктα Σuμлóτika on musical subjects, but did not use dialogue for his numerous other writings.56 Epicurus wrote a symposium, though for the rest he confined himself to letters and philosophi- cal treatises. And Menippus may have done likewise. To use the symposium while otherwise neglecting dialogue was not unnatu- ral since the Greeks looked on it as a specialized literary genus distinct from the dialogue proper.57 In contrast to this latter, the symposium was conceived of as a suitable form in which to com- bine onоudaía and yέloia and would therefore be a congenial literary medium for Menippus ὁ σπουδογέλοιος. Strictly speaking, to be sure, the "symposium" is a dialogue form, but to say that Menippus employed it for satire is quite a different matter from attributing to him the invention of the peculiarly Lucianic dramatic form of satire with its lively con- versation and shifting of scenery. Our extant symposia furnish no example of this form but all are either narrated or frame dia- logues. Of the two satiric examples known to us (both by follow- ers of Menippus) Lucian's is a narrative set in a brief frame, while Meleager's too could not have been dramatic. 58 It is reason- able to assume that Menippus' symposium likewise was a nar- rated or a frame dialogue. (We know from our one fragment that this was true of the Arcesilaus if that piece also was a vivium.") Menippus' use of the symposium, then, gives us no evidence for attributing to him the linking of comedy and dia- logue into the comic dramatic dialogue. ""con. As Lucian's Epistolae Saturnales, we saw, did not imitate the Divine Letters of Menippus, so his Convivium shows no trace of 54 Wasmannsdorf, op. cit., p. 10; Knauer, op. cit., p. 8; Wildenow, op. cit., p. 37. 55 Hirzel, op. cit., I, 359 ff. (and ch. IV, passim). On "diatribe" see below, n. 62. 56 Cf. Christ, Gesch. d. Gr. Lit., II, 69 f. 57 Hermogenes (IIepi Metódou AεIvóτNTOC, XXXVI, 455) distin- guishes between διάλογος defined as ἠθικοὶ λόγοι καὶ ζητητικοί and the συμπόσια Σωκράτικα, characterized by πλοκή σπουδαῖα καὶ γέλοια. 58 This is clear from the one fragment cited by Athenaeus (XI, 502c): "And in the meantime he proposed a deep toast to him, twelve deep cups." LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 19 aving had a Menippean model. Helm's analysis proves that he ould have taken from the Cynic, if anything, no more than the mere stimulus to write a satiric symposium. In content he finds parallels with Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, but as far as Me- nippus is concerned he admits "Wenn wir also nicht den Titel 'Symposion' bei Menipp hätten, wäre es schwer zu zeigen, dass er für das Motiv des Ganzen Lucian die Anregung gegeben 1959 hat. Diogenes Laertius gives us the names of a few more of Menip- pus' thirteen writings, the Necyia, Wills, Replies to the Physi- cists and Mathematicians and Grammarians, The Epicureans and Their Reverence for the Twentieth Day, and The Sale of Di- ogenes. We have no direct evidence as to the literary forms of these works. But we can gain an idea of them indirectly by de- ductions from probability and by studying the known imitators of Menippus. As Menippus used the common Alexandrian forms of epistle and symposium, we should expect him also to make use of the so-called “diatribe," which was not only the popular philo- sophical medium in his time but was moreover the especial vehi- cle of the Cynic school. This form indeed looms large in Helm's proof, even though he assumes that Menippus' writings were dialogues. One of his main arguments for Lucian's dependence on the older writer is the occurrence and recurrence in his works of Cynic figures of speech and typical comparisons such as occur in the "diatribes." But this Alexandrian form continued to be used after Menippus' day and reached a new height during the time of Lucian, when it was not only employed by the Sophists but exerted considerable influence on works of philosophy, reli- gion, and science." Lucian, who associated so much with the philosophers and Sophists of his own day, naturally came under the influence of this new "diatribe" as well as of its older prede- cessors. He wrote two short examples of the form, On Mourning and On Sacrifices and in his satiric dialogues it is difficult, I 6º Diog. Laert., VI, 101. ¿ Helm, op. cit., p. 262. 61 Diog. Laert., VI, 29. 62 O. Halbauer, De Diatribis Epicteti (Diss. Leipzig, 1911) has shown that the term "diatribe" in ancient usage refers only to discourses de- signed to be delivered or to ones which have been so delivered and have been recorded by the listeners. It has however come to be used generally in the sense of popular philosophical dialexis and may be retained in quotation marks as a convenient label for a distinct form. 68 E.g., Marcus Aurelius, Clement of Alexandria, Galen. 20 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY think impossible, to disentangle all the sources of "diatribe" in fluence since they include besides Menippus all the group of Hel lenistic diatribists, Musonius and Epictetus, and contemporary' Sophists and philosophers. When pointing out characteristics of diatribe" in Lucian, Helm practically disregards all of these sources with the exception of Menippus who, he thinks, did not write "diatribe" but dialogue. The probability is however that as an Alexandrian philosopher Menippus would have used "dia- tribe" and except for the specialized form of symposium that he would not have used dialogue. "" Let us look now at imitators of Menippus. Can we draw any inferences from their works as to Menippus' literary form? First, Lucian. We have already become more than sceptical of the proposition that the dramatic form which he uses in most of his satiric dialogues is adopted from Menippus. But it will be worth while to consider for a moment the two frame dialogues, the Necyomantia and the Icaromenippus, in which he introduces the living Cynic in the role of a narrator of adventures. In both of these pieces it is reasonably certain that the inspiration for the piece came from Menippus. In the case of the Necyomantia there can be little doubt that it was based to some extent on his Necyia. If Lucian imitated the actual form of the Cynic any- where we should expect it to be in these two pieces in which he plays such an important rôle and in which he furnished the source of inspiration for the subject matter. Even if we did not have other evidence against Menippus' use of dialogue, the more reasonable inference would not be that Menippus' Hades and Heaven trips were, like the Necyomantia and the Icaromenippus, frame dialogues but that they were similar in form to the actual narratives which in these pieces are put in the mouth of Menip- pus. · Again, the Menippean Satire of Seneca on the Apocolocyntosis of Claudius is couched in narrative-a further indication that this was one of the literary forms of Menippus. The Apocolocyn tosis shows the mixture of prose and verse which characterized Menippus' writings. Though Seneca knew Varro's satires and could have adapted this feature from them, it is practically cer- tain that he was also familiar with their Greek models and that he drew the inspiration for his composition from the same two writings that inspired the Necyomantia and the Icaromenippus of Lucian. He does not relate the story in the first person as Lucian has Menippus do and as Menippus almost certainly did 64 O. Weinreich, Seneca's Apocolocyntosis (Berlin, 1923). LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 21 himself, but the nature of his subject—a bitter personal satire of the dead Claudius-necessitates the use of the third person. The first person, however, is used in the introduction, where the author announces his intention of telling the story and gives his authority for it. Here then in Lucian and Seneca are two indica- tions that Menippus used narrative as a literary medium. Lucilius' first satire on the Deorum Concilium may be based on the same Menippean model which furnished inspiration for parts of the Icaromenippus and the Apocolocyntosis. If so, it contributes further evidence for the use of narrative by Menip- pus. For in spite of the fragmentary condition of the Lucilian satire and the direct quotations from the gods which it contains, it is obvious that the whole was in narrative form. 65 Without doubt the most important evidence which we have for the form of Menippus' writing is furnished by the Menippean Satires of Varro. Varro, himself, gave them this title and in the Academica Cicero makes him speak of "illis veteribus nostris quae Menippum imitati non interpretati "'66 Even Helm" and Oltramares in spite of their Lucian-Menippus theory agree that Varro if better preserved would give us a more adequate notion than Lucian does of the literary form of the old Cynic. A study of the fragments of Varro's Menippeans lends support to our belief that "diatribe" and narrative were two of Menippus' media. Let us look at two typical pieces-The Eumenides is the satire of which we have the most extensive remains, forty-nine fragments in all. The piece has never been satisfactorily recon- structed. But aside from a long discussion of the Stoic theme оTI πᾶς ἄφρων μαίνεται which may have occurred in the shape of a discourse by Truth or as a table conversation among philoso- phers, most of the fragments show narrative of action in the first person. The whole effect is that of a short story varied and en- livened by descriptions and quotations. We find an example of "diatribe" in the Marcipor. Norden's reconstruction of the piece seems to me in general to explain best the extant fragments.** The title, he believes, is purposely ambiguous, "Indicari enim cum videatur Marci servus re vera intellegitur is quem Marcus dicit puerum." It is a satire on the puerile desires and ambi- tions that beset men. Pelias' fatal attempt at rejuvenation," a 65 Aulus Gellius, II, 18, 7; XIII, 31, 1; cf. Macrobius, I, 11, 42. 66 Cicero, Acad. Post., I, 2, 8. 67 Helm, 8.v. "Kynismus," Pauly-Wissowa, R.-E., XXIII, 16 f. 69 E. Norden, p. 267. 6ª Oltramare, op. cit., p. 102. 10 70 Frgg. 284-287. (I give the numbers of the Varro fragments as they 22 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY woman's craving for jewelry," the desire for public office," as- trologers' pictures of the heavens," unnatural lust"-all are cited as illustrations of the childishness of the human race. One man is named who successfully rooted out from his nature all puerile desires and ambitions Diogenes the Cynic, who when Alexander asked him to demand any gift he desired answered "Stand out of my light."""" And so, of the other satires, some give evidence of having been informal narratives (many in the first person) into which there was introduced more or less direct quotation, while others were didactic essays which, so far as we can judge, closely resembled the Cynic "diatribe" in form and content. Oltramare has studied in some detail Varro's extended use of themes from the common treasury of the "diatribe."""" From its art he borrowed too the use of conventional historical and mythological examples, popu- lar proverbs and allegorical personifications. The introduction of a fictus adversarius, direct questions and imperatives addressed to his readers, and especially the frequent use of "non vides," "non videtis" corresponding to the Greek oỷx ópặc are all char- acteristic of the "diatribe."""" The "diatribe" satires differ from the usual Cynic sermon in the baroque mixture of prose and verse and in a greater element of "hilaritas."""" In none of Var- ro's Menippeans is there evidence for pure dialogue, though some of the apparent narratives may of course have been narrated dia- logues. To decide when a narrated dialogue ceases to be a dia- logue and becomes narrative is a nice question even in dealing with works which are fully preserved. From the evidence at our command we should judge then that the satires of Menippus took the form-in addition to the letter and symposium-first of a bizarre, moralizing narrative, and secondly of a modified diatribe. The narrative form is a natural medium in a period when the Milesian tales flourished. More closely analogous to Menippus than these is Eusebius in his 'Iɛpà 'Avaypaon, in which a Utopian first-person narrative formed the frame for an exposition of philosophical thought. The appear in the collection appended to F. Buecheler, Petronii Saturae, [Berlin, 1912].) T¹ Frg. 283. "¹ Frg. 280. 75 " Frg. 281; cf. Diog. Laert., VI, 38. 76 Oltramare, op. cit., pp. 102 ff. 17 Cf. Mras, Neue Jbb., XXXIII, 410. TS Cf. Cicero, Acad. Post., I, 2, 8. Frg. 278. "Frgg. 282; 275. 72 LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 23 "diatribe" is precisely the medium of preaching, which, if we were not prejudiced in favor of finding evidence for dialogue, we should expect from a Hellenistic Cynic. There was undoubtedly dialogue in Menippus' satires, but it was a minor element which served to enliven and add interest to the whole. Alice was not the first to demand conversation in a story; it has been part of the narrator's stock in trade since Homer, and its value in rendering sermons palatable was recog- nized by all the popular moralists. When we turn back to Lucian's satiric dialogues, it is clear that their form is not Menippean. The narratives in the Necyo- mantia and the Icaromenippus probably reflect Menippus in their general form. But the elaborate technique of his dramatic dialogues is Lucian's own development. Contrast his method of indicating change of scene with that employed in Varro's Menip- pean Satires. Hirzel, in commenting on the dramatic character of these latter, says that it shows itself "in der aüsserst lebendige Handlung und dem Scenenwechsel" and cites the Eumenides as the piece in which we can best see these qualities. Then he adds: "Von der Art dieser Darstellungen im Allgemeinen können uns Lucians érhaltene Dialoge noch eine anschauliche Vorstellung geben. ''79 I do not know how far Hirzel means to extend this comparison. In Lucian it is true we do have lively treatment and change of scenery. But the change of scene is, except in the nar- ratives of the Necyomantia and the Icaromenippus, of quite a lifferent sort from that in Varro. In the Eumenides the change of scene is narrated; e.g., fragment 149, "iens domum praeter matris deum aedem"; fragment 150, "cum illo veni, video gal- lorum frequentiam." So too change of scene is narrated in the Necyomantia; e.g., (6) ἔτεινον εὐθὺ Βαβυλῶνος-ἐλθὼν δὲ κτλ and (14) πρὸς τὸ κολαστήριον ἀφικνούμεθα. Usually however in Lucian, the information of a change of scenery is skilfully incor- porated into the dialogue; e.g., Piscator, 17: Enɛobe návтec, fol- lowed by (21) άye dǹ, nápeoµev yàp évða έxpñv. This ability to announce a change of place naturally in the course of the dia- logue is one of the points in which Lucian exhibits consummate dramatic skill. But the Eumenides is not a dramatic dialogue, and so in this point of technique it is analogous to the narratives which Lucian's Menippus recites in the Necyomantia and the Icaromenippus, not to Lucian's ordinary dialogues. The complex scenery of the Timon and Charon must also be Lucian's technical development. Helm seems to be of two minds 19 Hirzel, op. cit., I, 443. 24 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY on this matter. In speaking of the Zeus Tragoedus he says that "die packende Inszenierung ist sein (Lucian's) Verdienst."so But in commenting on the Menippean characteristics of the Timon, “Wir sehen Lucian also schon völlig im Banne Menipps; nicht nur in der aüssern Routine; denn die doppelte Szenerie im Himmel und auf Erden finden wir ebenso im "Tragischen Zeus.''' Kiaulehn in his study of the dramatic technique of the dialogue has expressed very strongly his belief that the double scene is not a device adopted from Menippus but is an invention of Lucian's own, suggested perhaps by such passages of the Iliad as Y 144 ff. and X 165 ff. Whether the device was really sug- gested by the Iliad may be doubted, but the conclusion that it is Lucian's own addition to the technique of dialogue is certainly sound. Münscher, who in a review of Kiaulehn's book disagrees with him on this point and would attribute the double scenery to Menippus, advances no evidence for his view.88 I do not under- stand the comparison of Geffcken who, in speaking of digressions like the Matron-of-Ephesus story in the first-person narrative of Petronius' Eumolpus, says: "Etwas durchaus Analoges aber hat uns Lukian-Menipp der uns mehrfach im 'Charon,' im 'Juppiter Confutatus' (obviously a miswriting for 'Juppiter Tragoedus') im 'Gallus' einen Dialog im anderen, eine Szene in der anderen wies."'84 This double scenery of Lucian's is not at all analogous to the Matron-of-Ephesus inlay nor yet to any scene which might have formed part of the narrative of Menippus Necyia. We have already had occasion to mention the most characteris tic aspect of Menippus' style, the free mixture of prose and verse in which, if we may judge from Probus, 5 Varro was his closest follower. It is a feature which seems more consistent with continuous narrative or discourse than with the dialogue form. The most natural explanation of the style is to regard it as a de- velopment from that of the usual "diatribe," in which the back- ground of prose was sprinkled not only with quoted but also with parodied verses which often formed an integral part of the con- text. From this it is a natural step to the introduction of verses of the author's own composition. This feature is not without 80 Helm, Lucian und Menipp, p. 150. 81 Ibid., p. 183. 83 V. Kiaulehn, De Scaenico Dialogorum Apparatu (Diss. Halae, 1914), p. 213. 84 Neue Jbb., XXVII, 487. 88 Jahresbericht, 1915, p. 32. 35 Probus, Ad Verg. Ecl. 6, 31. | LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 25 parallel in older Greek literature. In the speech of Agathon in Plato's Symposium, we have a verse of the speaker's own compo- sition quoted: ἐπέρχεται δὲ μοί τι καὶ ἔμμετρον εἰπεῖν, ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ποιῶν εἰρήνην μὲν ἐν ἀνθρώποις πελάγει δὲ γαλήνην νηνεμίαν ἀνέμων, κοίτη δ᾽ ὕπνον νηκηδῆ. 87 90 It is customarily said that the Menippean mixture of prose and verse was a tasteless barbarism which could have occurred only in a foreigner like the Syrian satirist. But if it is to be con- strued as an exhibition of oriental lack of taste, it is not of strict oriental origin but is an over-development of a stylistic feature which received high approval from the Greek grammarians. Demetrius of Phaleron says that xápic results from the quotation of another's words.88 And Hermogenes in Пepi гAUKUTηTOC gives as one source of γλυκύτης the περιπλοκὰς τῶν ποιημάτων ἐν λόγῳ. These may be είτε ἰδίων εἴτε ἀλλοτρίων.89 In his Περὶ Μεθόδου AεIVÓTηTOC the same grammarian distinguishes two methods of introducing verse into prose-κατὰ κόλλησιν and κατὰ παρωδίαν. We have the former, according to his definition, ótav ólókλnpov TÒ ἔπος εὐφυῶς κολλήσῃ τῷ λόγῳ ὥστε συμφωνεῖν δοκεῖν, the latter ὅταν μέρος εἰπὼν τοῦ ἔτους παρ' αὐτοῦ τὸ λοιπὸν πεζῶς ἑρμη- νεύσῃ. καὶ πάλιν τοῦ ἔπους εἰπὼν ἕτερον ἐκ τοῦ ἰδίου προσθῇ ὡς μίαν γενέσθαι τὴν ἰδέαν. Both these forms of introducing poetry were used in the "diatribe" and in Menippus. And since Menip- pus' writings were, in all probability, in part "diatribes," the most likely hypothesis is that his "barbaric" mixture of prose and poetry is a simple development from the more limited use of verse in the earlier dialexeis. Perhaps the epic parodies of Crates and the iambic verse diatribes of Phoenix may also have influenced his form. Considering the close relation between the diatribe and Menippus this seems to me a much more likely ex- planation of his mixture of verse and prose than the assumption of oriental influence or than Immisch's theory of the revival of the style from folk literature."¹ 86 Plato, Symposium, 197c. 87 C. Wachsmuth, Sillographorum Graecorum Reliquiae (Leipzig 1885), p. 85; Christ, II, 89, n. 6; Hirzel, op. cit., I, 381 f. 88 Demetrius, De Elocutione, 150. 89 Hermogenes Пepi 'Idéwv, IV, 320; 321. 90 Hermogenes Пepi Mɛ0. Aciv., XXX, 436. 91 O. Immisch, "Über eine volkstümliche Darstellungsform in der an- tiken Literatur," Neue Jbb., XLVII (1921), 409–421. 26 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY 1 92 So far as this feature of Menippus' style is concerned, Lu- cian's dialogues cannot follow him very closely. The complaint of Dialogue which we considered above, that in Lucian's hands he had become a surprising blend, neither in prose nor in metre,' seems a little exaggerated when we really analyze the proportion of verse and prose in the pieces in question. To call himself a hippocentaur exhibits an undue degree of sensitiveness. But he is being satiric, and so exaggerates what is really a very temper- ate imitation of Menippus' exotic form. In the Necyomantia and in the Icaromenippus, both of which derive their inspiration from Menippus, we find only a light sprinkling of verses. The former contains ten quoted or parodied verses, all but two of them from Homer and Euripides. The iambic trimeter (1) αὐτόματά μοι τὰ μέτρα ἐπὶ τὸ στόμα έρχεται may possibly be original or it may be borrowed from some lost comedy," and again in sec. 9 a verse is used of which the source is unknown. In the Icaromenippus ten verses occur, nine from Homer and one from Aratus. The Jupiter Tragoedus, in which poetry is quoted or parodied twenty-three times and which is thus the most Menippean of the dialogues in this respect, is a piece in which even Helm admits Lucian does not directly copy Menippus but reuses and expands motifs from him, while intro- ducing much that is his own." Only one piece, the Piscator, even approaches the Jupiter Tragoedus in its admixture of verse.95 Compare this limited employment of verse in Lucian with the complete hippocentaurlike mixture in Varro, and it will be clear that Lucian's manner was not identical with that of Menippus Let us look back a little to see what picture we can form of the works of the Cynic Menippus. He was, as we should expect, a satirist—a σπουδογέλοιος. Two forms of his satire are directly attested-the epistle and the symposium, both popular media with his Alexandrian contemporaries. Our supposition that he must also have employed the popular Cynic vehicle of the "dia tribe" receives support from a study of the Menippean Satires of his imitator Varro. From Varro and also from his other imi tators we should conclude that he employed not only "diatribe" but narrative. There is slight evidence for his use of dialogue ** Harmon, Lucian, IV, 75. 92 Bis Acc., 33. * Helm, op. cit., pp. 133–151. * Note that the Piscator is later in time than the Bis Accusatus which contains Dialogue's indictment. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 27 the form which scholars have generally attributed to him. He certainly did not employ the elaborate comic dialogue which we find in Lucian, a form which was, as Lucian claims, his own in- vention. The most characteristic feature of Menippus' style was a very free mixture of prose and verse, a feature which is re- flected in Varro's Menippean Satires and much more faintly in Lucian. From a study of Varro, it would seem very likely that Menippus' satires lacked unity, that we may have had in them abrupt transitions from narrative to moralizing, or from moral- izing to narrative illustrations. If we should look for some extant type to which to compare them, it is probable that except for their mixed style they resembled most closely the Roman satire. Which of the satirists, it is hard to say, for Menippus, without doubt, was more onoudaioc than Horace but more yέlooc than Persius. Since we have been able to find nothing which would lead us to suppose that Menippus' satires bore any close resemblance to the dialogues of Lucian, let us see what are the arguments advanced for the theory that they mirror the Cynic's work. Two main lines of proof run through Helm's treatment of every dialogue. The first is Lucian's use of ideas, figures of speech, and typical com- parisons which belonged to the repertory of the Cynic school. These, we have seen, are not unexpected and may come from various sources of "diatribe" influence. There is no reason to assume that all or any great part of them came from Menippus. The other argument is the one on which most stress is laid and which is particularly emphasized by those who have accepted the Lucian-Menippus theory-the fact that the historical examples used are, as a rule, not later in date than the middle of the third century B.C., the floruit of Menippus. Helm admits that it was characteristic of the Sophists to take their illustrations from the istory of bygone days, and quotes Dio's iowe yap μου кaтaḍро- εἰς καὶ ἡγῆ με ληρεῖν, ὅτι οὐ περὶ Κύρου καὶ ᾿Αλκιβιάδου λέγω, ισπερ οἱ σοφοί, ἔτι καὶ νῦν, ἀλλὰ Νέρωνος καὶ τοιούτων πραγμάτων εωτέρων τε καὶ ἀδόξων μνημονεύω. Το use Nero, or any Roman or that matter, as an illustration was distinctly unusual for Dio o less than for the Sophists. Even in the Пɛpi Káλλouc, the piece 1 which this quotation occurs, Nero's is the only name of recent ate. The other men who are cited as examples are Critias, Dae- lalus, Achilles, Hector, Euphorbus, Patroclus, Alexander, Troi- us, Menelaus, Nireus, Sesostris, Memnon, Ninyas, Eurypylus, nd Pelops. This customary restriction of historical illustrations 96 * Dio, XXI, Пepi Kálλouc (Ed. Budé, Vol. II, p. 337). 28 BARBARA P. McCARTHY 97 98 to those of an early date Helm believes applies only to Sophistic show pieces. That it cannot account for Lucian's avoidance of contemporary references is indicated, in his opinion, by the Syr- ian's criticisms of this very tendency in the Sophists. In the Rhetorum Praeceptor the professor of rhetoric à la mode gives this advice to his young disciple: έni nãoι dè ò Mapaðŵv kai ó Κυναίγειρος ὧν οὐκ ἄν τι ἄνευ γένοιτο. καὶ ἀεὶ ὁ ᾿Αθως πλείσθω καὶ ὁ Ἑλλήσποντος πεζενέσθω καὶ ὁ ἥλιος ὑπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν βελών σκεπέσθω καὶ Ξέρξης φευγέτω, καὶ ὁ Λεωνίδας θαυμαζέσθω καὶ τὰ Οθρυάδου γράμματα ἀναγινωσκέσθω, καὶ ἡ Σάλαμις καὶ τὸ ᾿Αρτεμίσιον καὶ αἱ Πλαταιαὶ πολλὰ ταῦτα καὶ πυκνά. And in the Bis Accusatus Lucian claims to have abandoned Tupávvwv κατηγορίας καὶ ἀριστέων ἐπαίνους. But in both these passages it is the type of Sophistic speech that Lucian is satirizing, in the first instance the eloquent patriotic address, in the second the μελétaι of the Sophists, and not the use of typical examples from the history of the past. That he claims to have said farewell to Sophistic μeéta is no proof that he intends to abandon all the tricks of the Sophistic trade. The habit, which he had formed in that profession, of neglecting the present to reach back into the realm of mythology and early history was not given up when he turned from epideictic oratory to dialogue. There was no reason why it should have been. His cultured audience who had been reared under the tutelage of the Sophists preferred that their entertainment should have a certain appearance of erudition- and what easier way of creating this effect than a sprinkling of allusions to historic persons and events! There was no danger of its becoming unintelligible, for to the Greeks of the second cen- tury of our era, the Athens of the days of Demosthenes and earlier was just as real and just as well-known as the world of their own day. I confess I do not follow the argument that "die historischen Anspielungen gar nicht auf der Stufe jener in der Reden der Sophisten immer wieder vorgebrachten Verherrlichung alter Helden stehen und sich von dort aus nicht begreifen lassen, aber auch sonst nicht als Erfindung Lucians; darum, wo uns Anspielungen begegnen die mit seiner Lebenszeit nichts zu schaf fen haben, wird man mit Recht glauben auf Menipps Fährte zu sein.'” It is true that Lucian's historical examples do not occur in Sophistic speeches, but that makes them none the less Sophis tic. Most of them are conventional and are of the stock of the Sophists no less than of Cynics like Menippus. 98 Bis Acc., 32. 97 Rhet. Praec., 18. * Helm, op. cit., p. 16. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 29 Helm has analyzed for historical examples only those dialogues which he considers Menippean. But if we look at the Imagines and the Pro Imaginibus, which, except for their artistic form, are purely Sophistic ecphrases, we shall find that the same limita- tion of historical example holds true. And here there is no possi- bility that the avoidance of the present is due to servile copying of Menippus. The artists whose works are drawn on for the com- posite picture of Panthea all belong to the fifth and fourth cen- turies a fact which does not justify Blümner's conclusion that Lucian considered the sculptors and painters of his own day worthless.100 It is merely a manifestation of the same Sophistic tendency that makes him confine the literary artists mentioned in the pieces in question to those of an early date-Homer, Pin- dar, Xenophon, Aeschines, Sappho, Stesichorus, and Simonides. Many typical mythological and historical examples occur which, if they were in a satiric dialogue, Helm would undoubtedly at- tribute to Menippus. Nireus and Phaon101 are types of beauty; Milo, Glaucus, and Polydamas102 typify strength and athletic prowess; Thersites is, as usual, a conventional example of an ugly man, Achilles of a handsome one.108 And along with these types of Cynic origin, we get the conventional theatre simile which we associate with the same school.104 Of the historical characters mentioned the latest in date is a toady of Demetrius Poliorcetes named Cynaethus,105 who is mentioned nowhere else in extant literature. The name is given to a parasite in Alci- phron,106 who very likely takes it from Lucian just as he takes the name Lexiphanes from the same source. If this reference oc- curred in a satiric dialogue, I can imagine how eagerly it would be seized on by the "Menippists" as evidence of great weight. The argument would be used that in the second century after Christ the name of an obscure flatterer in the household of Demetrius must have vanished from memory and that so Lucian must have copied the name from Menippus. We shall see clearly how sophistic the arguments from histori- cal examples can be if we look at Helm's treatment of the Jupiter Confutatus. He sees in the dialogue an expansion of a conversa- tion which took place in Heaven between Zeus and Menippus in the assumed original Icaromenippus. The abruptness of the open- 100 H. Blümner, Archäologische Studien zu Lucian (Breslau 1867). 101 Pro Imag., 2. 102 Ibid., 19. 104 Ibid., 3. 108 Ibid., 20. 105 Ibid., 20. 106 Alciphron (ed. Schepers, 1905), p. 65. (III, 7; vulg. III, 43.) 30 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY ing sentence ἐγὼ δὲ ὦ Ζεῦ, τὰ μὲν τοιαῦτα οὐκ ἐνοχλήσω σε πλοῦτον ἢ χρυσὸν ἡ βασιλείαν αἰτῶν ἅπερ εὐκταιότατα τοῖς πολλοῖς indicates in his opinion that the piece was originally not an inde- pendent unit but was linked with the prayer scene in the Icaro- menippus.107 He does not comment on the difficulty presented by the difference in the form of these two pieces. In the Icaromenip- pus what passed between Zeus and Menippus is narrated by the Cynic; here in the Jupiter Confutatus the form is a dramatic dialogue. That this latter piece was inspired by the Icaromenip- pus is, I admit, very likely. Lucian, I do think, conceives of a situation very similar to that in the earlier dialogue; but the abrupt έyw dé is not copied from Menippus but is a device of his own to plunge us in medias res with the feeling that other more usual petitions have preceded the request of Cyniscus. So the second Dialogue of the Gods begins abruptly with Eros' plea, ἀλλ᾽ εἰ καί τι ἥμαρτον, ὦ Ζεῦ, σύγγνωθί μοι. And in the thirteenth Dialogue of the Gods, we know that we have just missed the start of a quarrel between Asclepius and Heracles from the opening words of Zeus: παύσασθε, ὦ ᾿Ασκληπιὲ καὶ Ἡράκλεις, ἐρίζοντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὥσπερ ἄνθρωποι. The mythological characters alluded to in this dialogue include Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Laius; the historical ones Croe- sus, Aristides, Phocion, Callias, Alcibiades, Socrates, Meletus, Meidias, and Charops. The fact that all of these are earlier in date than Menippus is stressed as if it constituted an extremely important proof of Lucian's dependence on a model. "Man muss beachten," says Helm, "dass diese Beziehungen nur bis zur Zeit des Demosthenes hinabführen und dass zwei der Beispiele nicht zu den typischen gehören, also ihre Anführung nicht aus sich selbst rechtfertigen.''108 That two of the examples are not typical does not seem to me nearly so significant as that only two of them are not typical. Of these two, Lucian could have assumed that the name of Meidias, the famous enemy of Demosthenes, would be familiar to most of his hearers, while, it seems to me, we are not justified in drawing any conclusion from the mention of the otherwise completely unknown Charops. The citation of details like the έyw dέ and the stress laid on historical examples might lead one to assume that the whole piece had been proved to be merely an excerpt from Menippus. But no! after a study of the sources of the dialogue, it is admitted "Es ist selbstverständlich dass nicht jeder Gedanke aus der Widerlegung des Zeus sich in dieser Form und in dieser Breite bei Menipp gefunden hat; im 108 Helm, op. cit., p. 120. 107 Helm, op. cit., p. 117. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 31 • Gegenteil das Fehlen des eigentlichen Charakteristikums menip- pischer Satire, das Farblose des ganzen, die Oberflächlichkeit der Gründe beweist deutlich dass die Entlehnungen nur sehr gering sein können. Lucian hat sehr vieles aus skeptisch-akademischer Quelle ergänzt was in der kynischen höchstens angedeutet war.''109 Here we are! The borrowings from Menippus are really very slight, and the greater part of the dialogue is Lucian's own invention. The historical allusions, which have been so strongly stressed, prove nothing but Lucian's own Sophistic tendency to draw on the past. If we read carefully the chapter on this dia- logue we realize that Helm has proved nothing but the inspira- tion Menippean. As a matter of fact he has not even proved that. Lucian may have drawn the inspiration for the dialogue from his own Icaromenippus, not from its Menippean original, just as in the Dialogues of the Dead we can see how one piece gave him the inspiration for another. Aside from these two main arguments-the use of “diatribe" material and the limitation of historical examples and infer- ences from Lucian's mixture of prose and verse, the only other general proof which Helm offers for his theory is the fact that we can find parallels to some of Lucian's motives in other litera- ture which was influenced by Menippus. His main sources of evi- dence are parallels between fragments of Varro's Menippean Satires and Lucian; between the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca and Lucian's dialogues of Heaven and of the lower world; between Lucilius' first satire and the Deorum Concilium; between Hor- ace, Satire II, 5, and the Necyomantia, and between the frag- ments of Oenomaus and the Jupiter Confutatus. His procedure is always about the same. He compares Lucian and the other author in question and attributes what similarities he finds to the fact that they had a common source in Menippus. That the paral- lels are never very close is explained always by the assumption that the other author imitated freely what Lucian copied slav- ishly, and the possibility that both imitations may be very free is not considered. This line of argument when it indicates any- thing proves nothing more than a general adoption of motives. Helm's general arguments, then, do not seem to me to be con- vincing. Let us turn next to a consideration of his analyses of those Lucianic dialogues in which he thinks there is the most servile imitation. We shall begin with the two dialogues of the lower world, the Necyomantia and the Cataplus, both of which in all probability took their inspiration from the Necyia of Menip- 109 Helm, op. cit., p. 130. 32 BARBARA P. McCARTHY pus. In Helm's opinion Lucian in the Necyomantia merely epito- mized the Necyia, saving episodes from it to rework later in the Cataplus and the Dialogues of the Dead. He nowhere men- tions the form of the original, but we are left to assume that he thinks it was, like Lucian's imitation, a frame dialogue. I have already expressed my conviction that the Necyia was not a frame dialogue but a straight narrative in the first person. Harmon allows the possibility that it may have been a third-per- son narrative "Menippus told how he (or someone else) had learned” etc.—110 but the fact that Lucian introduces Menippus into Hades not only here but in the Dialogues of the Dead indi- cates, it seems to me, that he must have portrayed himself as there in the Necyia. Lucian had already, I think, written the Dialogues of the Dead, in which he combined the form of his minor Sophistic dia- logues with Cynic material from the "diatribe" and from Menip- pus. It was the fact that Menippus had written a Necyia describ ing a trip to the lower world which inspired Lucian to give him such an important place among the shades. In placing these miniatures of Hades before the Necyomantia, I agree with Knauer.¹¹¹ Though I am not at all sure of the truth of his gen- eralization that any author when he begins to use a new form composes shorter works first, I do think such a development holds good for Lucian. We can trace the development of the Dialogues of the Gods from brief scenes to longer compositions. The Judg- ment of the Goddesses, which is usually printed among the Dia logues of the Gods,112 is really a separate piece in the manuscripts and shows a development of the shorter form. This extension is even clearer in the Prometheus, where Lucian handles a subject already suggested in the Dialogues of the Gods. One of these brief scenes paints a conversation between Prometheus and Zeus in which the Father of Gods and Men finally permits the release of the Titan after he has warned him against associating with Thetis.¹¹³ In the longer dialogue, Prometheus is nailed to the cliff very much as in Aeschylus except that Hephaestus is assisted not by the personified Kratos and Bia but by Hermes. Then a thor- oughly Sophistic development is introduced-a mock trial in which Hermes briefly reviews the charges against Prometheus and the latter defends himself at great length. At the end of the piece, Prometheus gives a hint that a secret which he knows about 118 110 A. M. Harmon, Lucian, IV, 71. 111 Knauer, op. cit., pp. 19 f. 118 Ibid., 1. 112 Dial. Deor., 20. 1 ļ ¿ ! 33 LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS • Thetis will eventually cause his release a prophecy the fulfil- ment of which Lucian had already described in the Dialogue of the Gods. As the Judgment of the Goddesses and the Prometheus are expanded "dialogues of the gods," so the Necyomantia and Cataplus impress me as longer developments of the Dialogues of the Dead. The only authority whom Helm cites¹¹ to justify plac- ing these latter pieces as late as 166-167 is Nissen, who in an article Über die Abfassungszeit von Arrians Anabasis remarks very incidentally that the Dialogues of the Dead were composed in 166 or early in 167 between the time of the peace with the Parthians and the outbreak of war with the Marcomanni.115 This date is inferred from a complaint of Charon in the fourth dia- logue to the effect that obols are scarce and his finances low, εipńvn yap.11 But this remark would equally fit the end of An- εἰρήνη γάρ. toninus Pius' reign or the very beginning of Marcus Aurelius', early in 161 before the battle of Elegeia started the Parthian war.117 Hermes' reflections on the contrast between oi naλaιoí, who were ἀνδρεῖοι ἅπαντες αἵματος ἀναπλέῳ καὶ τραυματίαι οἱ лolλoí, and the spineless men of the present day who die for the most part as a result of intrigue would imply that peace had been reigning not merely for a year but for a long period.118 This points, then, to the composition of the dialogues at the end of the long peaceful reign of Antoninus Pius about the year 160 rather than to 166–167. If we are to place the Necyomantia in 161,1 119 it would be shortly preceded by the Dialogues of the Dead.1 120 Lucian, then, had already introduced the author of the Necyia into the world of the dead to laugh at τοὺς πλουσίους καὶ σατρά- πας καὶ τυράννους οὕτω ταπεινοὺς καὶ ἀσήμους,121 as we may as- sume he had done in his Necyia. Now in this longer piece, under the influence of Menippus' own writing, he changes his method of presentation and instead of employing dramatic dialogue couches the description of the underworld in a first-person narra- tive. To make the whole more effective, he employs a frequent device of his, the setting in a dramatic frame. Menippus and a 114 Pauly-Wissowa, R.-E., Halbbd. 26, p. 1738; Lucian und Menipp, p. 195. 115 Rh. Mus. 1888, p. 244. 117 Dio Cassius, LXXI, 2. 116 Dial. Mort., IV, 2. 118 Dial. Mort., IV, 2. 119 Helm, op. cit., p. 60, n. 2. 120 For further evidence of the earlier composition of the Dialogues of the Dead, see pp. 11 f. 121 Dial. Mort., I, 1. 34 BARBARA P. McCARTHY friend meet in the upper world. The Cynic, who has just re- turned from Hades to the light of day and is still wearing the costume of his Kaтáßaoic-cap, lyre, and lion skin-is still so dazed by his sudden return to the light and by his recent asso- ciation with the great poets of the past that he can talk nothing but verse. So in the dramatic introduction, which in my opinion cannot come from Menippus, we meet six of the nine verses which help to give the dialogue its Menippean character, a proof that Lucian could imitate style without verbal imitation. Menip- pus inquires how things are going in the city and when he hears that the rich are stealing, forswearing, and exacting usury, he expresses pity for their ignorance. They do not know what de- crees have that very day been passed against them in the lower world. This whets his friend's curiosity, and after a little coax- ing he persuades Menippus to tell the story of his trip from the beginning. From this point on, we have a narrative with occa- sional interruptions from the friend when Lucian feels a point needs emphasizing. Menippus explains first how he was early troubled by the con- flict between the poets' stories of the behaviour of the gods and the laws decreed for behaviour upon earth, and in his confusion of mind had recourse to the philosophers for help. But he found that among these ignorance and perplexity were greater than elsewhere, so that he was quickly convinced that the life of the man in the street was ideal (χρυσοῦν τὸν τῶν ἰδιωτῶν τοῦτον Bíov). This thoroughly Sceptic view foreshadows the response of Teiresias at the end of the piece: ὁ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν ἄριστος βίος. It is 8 not Cynic and could not come from Menippus, for the Cynics, though they combated opposing sects, did not condemn ethical philosophy in this wholesale fashion. Diogenes used to say, ac- cording to Laertius, that when he saw physicians, philosophers, and pilots at their work he deemed man the most intelligent of animals.122 The graphic description of the differences existent among philosophers which follows next is also in a Sceptic rather than a Cynic mood. The passage ὁ δέ τις ἔμπαλιν πονεῖν τὰ πάντα καὶ μοχθεῖν καὶ τὸ σῶμα καταναγκάζειν ῥυπῶντα καὶ αὐχμῶντα καὶ πᾶσι δυσαρεστοῦντα καὶ λοιδορούμενον,128 is certainly a man-in- kai the-street description of a Cynic philosopher. It suits the unbe- liever Lucian, not the Cynic Menippus. This difference among philosophers on questions of the uni- verse is more briefly treated than their ethical conflicts, since it is to be expanded at length in the Icaromenippus. Menippus says 128 Necyom., 4. 122 Diog. Laert., VI, 24. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 35 only that he was nauseated by their talk of ideas, incorporeali- ties, atoms, voids, and a multitude of such abstractions.124 This part of his indictment might conceivably come from Menippus, since the Cynics heartily condemned the study of physical phe- nomena. But the emphasis laid on conflict of opinion is rather Sceptic. Menippus next goes on to say that he was disgusted, not only by the differences among philosophers, but by the contradic- tion between their teaching and their practice. Here we have no distinction between the true and false philosopher such as a Cynic might draw, but all members of the profession are in- cluded in a sweeping condemnation. The sentiment is paralleled in the Hermotimus,125 the Sceptic origin of which is undisputed. The whole motivation for the Kaтáẞaoic then was in all proba- bility not part of Menippus' Necyia since it exhibits a Sceptic, not a Cynic point of view. This harmonizes perfectly with Har- mon's suggestion that the original Necyia was aimed, not at the philosophers, but at the rich, and that Lucian gave it a double point, at the expense of its unity.126 When Menippus had given up faith in the guiding power of philosophers, he resolved to take a trip to Hades under the con- duct of one of the magi of Babylon, and there ask advice of the sage Teiresias. The description of the sacred rites and ceremonies by which Mithrobarzanes prepared him for his awesome journey is in all probability, as Cumont has suggested,127 a satiric parody of the ceremonies of the Mithraic cult which was so popular in the Roman world under the Antonines. There is every reason for attributing this section of the piece also to Lucian's own inven- tion. Helm has no grounds for his suggestion that Lucian may simply have transferred a parody of the Eleusinian or other mysteries which occurred in his prototype to the oriental cult of his own day.128 The disguise which Menippus dons for his trip-the cap of Odysseus, the lion skin of Heracles, and the lyre of Orpheus- was in all probability suggested by Dionysus' use of Heracles' 124 Necyom., 4. 125 Hermotimus, 76. 126 Harmon, Lucian, IV, 71. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wunderer- zählunge (Leipzig, 1906), p. 20, wrongly explains the lack of unity by assuming that, “Eine stark orientalisierte moralpredigende Burleske” is combined "mit der gegen die Philosophie sich richtenden Satire Me- nipps." 127 F. Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (tr. McCormack, 1903), pp. 27, 82. 128 Helm, op. cit., p. 61. 36 BARBARA P. McCARTHY lion skin in the Frogs,120 and perhaps by similar motives in other comic descents into Hades. Even if it could be proved, as it has not been, in my opinion, that Horace's satire of Odysseus and Teiresias was inspired by Menippus rather than directly by the Homeric Katáẞaoic, Odysseus' presence in it would not prove a Menippean origin for the pilos and the impersonation of Odys- seus in Lucian's dialogue.180 Helm, in his anxiety to give Menip- pus credit for everything possible, loses sight of Lucian's ac- knowledgments of indebtedness to Old Comedy. It is a question, he says, in summarizing his results, whether the direct influence of comedy was very great in our satires.11 But since most of the influence of comedy on Lucian's work is evident in these very pieces, to assume that it all came through the medium of Menip- pus is completely to disregard Lucian's claims. After the magic rites and incantations of Mithrobarzanes have rent the earth and opened up a huge chasm, they descend into the realm of the shades. There we should expect, in accordance with the note of the introduction, that our hero would find the philosophers in terrible torment as a punishment for their quack- ery and deceit. But no, the tone changes from Sceptic to Cynic. And it is the wealthy and powerful who fare badly. At the court of Minos, there are no philosophers on trial. Instead we find such people as tax-collectors and informers, and in a separate com- pany the millionaires and money-lenders, each with a neck-iron and a hundred-pound "crow.""182 Minos, Menippus reports, dealt most harshly with those who were swollen with pride of wealth and position, and stripped them naked of their money, their fine families, and their power. While this was going on, the Cynic went up to various men whom he recognized, and reminded them of their past grandeur when clients crowded to their doors early in the morning to greet them¹83-a contemporary reference to the morning visits to Roman patrons, which Lucian brings in very easily and aptly in the midst of what may be Menippean material. In the place of punishment, too, the philosophers are not pic- tured as suffering, but kings, slaves, satraps, the poor, the rich, and even beggars are all being very democratically punished to- gether. There is not complete equality, however, for poor people -a nice Cynic touch-are tortured only half as long, and are allowed to rest before their punishment is resumed.¹³ 129 Cf. Ledergerber, op. cit., p. 43. 131 Helm, op. cit., p. 341. 188 Necyom., 12. 180 Helm, op. cit., p. 19, n. 3. 182 Necyom., 11. 184 Ibid., 14. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 37 1 In the Acherusian Plain where the dead live by nations and clans, all are alike grim, hollow-eyed skeletons; so that it is diffi cult to distinguish Thersites from Nireus, Irus from Alcinous, the cook Pyrrhias from Agamemnon.15 All of these names are typical except Pyrrhias, who is introduced probably from com- edy as a foil to Agamemnon. If the first two pairs come, as they well may, from the Necyia the last may be an addition of Lucian's. Menippus as he looks at the dead is inspired to compare man- kind, first to participants in a pageant conducted by túxŋ and then to actors in a theatre-both conventional similes which em- phasize the transitoriness of wealth and power.18 This idea is further developed in what follows. Costly tombs avail one noth- ing in the lower world, for Mausolus' monument only burdens him with its great weight.17 Kings and satraps are reduced to the utmost poverty, to selling salt fish and teaching the alphabet. Philip of Macedon cobbles shoes and the Xerxeses, Dariuses, and Polycrateses of history are begging at the crossroads. 138 Sardana- palus, Midas, and other wealthy men are tortured by the cynic laughter of Diogenes—a fate which they suffered very simi- larly from Menippus in one of the Dialogues of the Dead.140 The whole picture of the underworld then centers on the sad fate of the rich and powerful. The philosophers, when mentioned at all, are faring pleasantly. Aristippus of Cyrene is held in such honor and has so great an influence that he is able to obtain a pardon for Dionysius of Sicily.141 Socrates, in accordance with the wish he had expressed at the end of his Apology, goes about cross-questioning everyone. Two of his talkative associates, Pala- medes and Odysseus, are among those famous dead whom he mentioned by name in the Apology. And ¿ ẞéλTIOTOC Diogenes is thoroughly happy making life—or rather, death—unpleasant for Sardanapalus and Midas.¹² Altogether, their prosperity does not accord with the condemnation of the entire profession in the introduction. Menippus has now gone as far in his description of the lower world as the author wishes. Somehow he must get back to the 185 Ibid., Ibid., 15. 187 Ibid., 17. 139 Ibid., 18. 136 Ibid., 16. 128 Ibid., 17. 140 Dial. Mort., 2. 141 Necyom., 13; Helm, op. cit., p. 34, interprets the mention of Aris- tippus as a proof of close adherence to Menippus who mixed Hedonism with his Cynicism. 142 Necyom., 18. 38 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY subject of the psephisma which led up to the whole story. This is accomplished abruptly but yet artistically. Menippus' un- broken account has concluded some minutes before, and his friend who has been questioning him on several details-the value of elaborate monuments and the conduct of the wise men- now not unnaturally recalls him to the first point of his story with ταυτὶ μὲν ἱκανῶς. τί δὲ τὸ ψήφισμα ἦν ὅπερ ἐν ἀρχῇ ἔλεγες κεκυρῶσθαι κατὰ τῶν πλουσίων;148 Capelle regards the introdue- tion of the psephisma as a proof that the Necyomantia was writ- ten after the Icaromenippus. In the latter piece, the same motif is used-a psephisma is passed in heaven against the philoso- phers who first plunged Menippus into difficulties. There he ad- mits it is à propos but "es steht mit dem Grundmotiv von Me- nipps Hadesfahrt an sich in gar keinem Zusammenhang." Ca- pelle believes Lucian reintroduced the motif from the Icaro- menippus and "hat es anorganisch genug eingefügt." It is true that the decree against the rich has no connection with the express purpose of the trip. But it does harmonize perfectly with the anti-capitalistic spirit of the whole description of Hades. The thread of the psephisma having been caught up, Menip- pus has still to describe how he accomplished the purpose of his journey—the visit to Teiresias. So he turns to this with a brief transitional sentence: ταῦτα μὲν δή σοι τὰ ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. ἐγὼ δέ, οὗπερ ἀφίγμην ἕνεκα, τῷ Τειρεσίᾳ προσελθὼν ἱκέτευον αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα διηγησάμενος εἰπεῖν πρός με ποῖόν τινα ἡγεῖται τὸν ἄριστον Biov.145 The seer's answer coincides precisely with the conclusion which his questioner had already reached from his own experi- ence with philosophers. The life of the common man is best. One should avoid philosophical speculation and τὸ παρὸν εὖ θέσθαι an old proverb which belonged in the treasury of the Cynic-Stoic diatribe.146 When Teiresias had given this advice, he took his departure. And as it was already late, Mithrobarzanes showed his charge a short cut to the upper world via the oracle of Tro-. phonius. Looking back on the satire, we have seen that the introductory dialogue, in spite of its quotations in the Menippean manner, is Lucian's own invention. He is responsible too for the Sceptic account of Menippus' difficulties with the philosophers which motivates the trip, and for the rites and ceremonies with which the kaτáẞaoic is accomplished. In about the first three-sevenths 148 Necyom., 19. 144 Berl. Phil. Wochenschr., XXXIV (1914), 265–266. 145 Necyom., 21. 146 Helm, op. cit., pp. 37 f. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 39 • of the work, then, there can be very little which comes from Menippus' Necyia. In the rest of the piece it is a question how much of the mate- rial is Menippean. Teiresias' response, since it links up with the non-Menippean introduction, is Lucian's own addition. But it is very probable, as Harmon suggests, 147 that Teiresias was also the object of the trip in Menippus' Necyia and that his answer was there directed against the wealthy and powerful instead of the philosophers. The idiurai whose way of life the seer praises may originally have been contrasted with rulers instead of philoso- phers. That Menippus' satire bore the title vεkuia, which was the common name for the eleventh book of the Odyssey, makes it probable that he like Odysseus consulted Teiresias on his prob- lem. Also since his home was in Thebes148 it is not likely that he would slight his adopted countryman for some adviser less his- torically authenticated, as Timon in his trip to the underworld seeks his information from Xenophanes. If Teiresias in Menippus' work condemned the wealthy, it may be that the psephisma against them which would thus in a sense duplicate his response is an addition of Lucian's.149 But this is not certain. A heaping up of the satire by the two differ- ent devices might well be effective. And there is no reason why Lucian in a satire which he has turned against the philosophers hould introduce a decree against the rich, unless of course—a >ossibility which we must always allow in treating our author— e simply took the notion into his head to do so. About the de- ree, then, we are not certain. And there is even less certainty bout the description of Hades. Since Lucian pictures it not only ere but in the Cataplus as a place where the wealthy and power- ful fare badly, it is very likely that Menippus' Necyia had the Jame tone. But a general adoption of the tone without a copying of details is possible. The references to the Roman client-patron ituation and to the Parthian War show at least that Lucian was willing to add to whatever he may have used from the Necyia. And if he introduced these contemporary points, he may likewise ave added many of the typical characters or even the pageant nd theatre similes from his Sophistic stock. We cannot arrive at ny certainty. But of this much we can be sure that the Menip- us, or Necyomantia, of Lucian is not a mere epitome of Menip- us' Necyia. The Κατάπλους ή Τύραννος150 takes us again to the lower 147 Harmon, Lucian, IV, 71. 149 Helm, op. cit., pp. 36 f. 148 Diog. Laert., VI, 99. 150 Cataplus, sive Tyrannus. 40 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY world. Like the preceding piece and the Dialogues of the Dead it was in all probability influenced by Menippus' Necyia. But Helm has not successfully proved his assertion that it is merely a slightly reworked version of several scenes in the original which Lucian omitted or abbreviated in his earlier "epitome." As when he treats the dramatic dialogue Jupiter Confutatus as an excerpt of the narrative of an original Icaromenippus, so here too Helm makes no mention of the difference in form between the Cataplus and the Necyomantia. He fails apparently to appre- ciate Lucian's technique as a dramatic artist and ignores the fact that a reworking from narrative to a dialogue of such technical merits151 would virtually constitute an original creation, even if the subject-matter were closely followed. But even this latter claim cannot be maintained. A brief résumé of the piece may be helpful before we discuss the difficulties in detail. The scene opens at the ferry in the lower world where Charon and Clotho are discussing the delay of Hermes. While they are yet talking, the subject of their discus- sion arrives hot and breathless, leading the train of orpses. He explains that one of the dead, the tyrant Megapenthes, had tried to run away while Aeacus was making his tally at the entrance to Hades. Hermes had pursued and captured him with the help of another corpse, the Cynic Cyniscus. His explanation is accepted and the dead are loaded into the ferry while Clotho checks their number. All go peaceably except Megapenthes, who begs for an extension of life. After a long argument between him and Clotho he is shoved on board with Cyniscus' help and fastened to the mast. The cobbler Micyllus, who has been almost overlooked, now makes himself heard. In spite of his eagerness to get on board and his expressed admiration for the democratic spirit of Hades.* Charon decides the boat is already full and hauls up the anchor The cobbler, after philosophically reflecting that he cannot drown since he is already dead and that he has no obol anyway, begins to swim. Horrified by this unconventional method of transit/ Clotho and Charon pull him into the boat, where he finds a sea' on the shoulders of Megapenthes. The ferry starts and Cyniscus who has no obol, helps the ferryman with the rowing. During th passage the dead lament the good things they have left behind and Micyllus, ordered by Hermes to shed a tear for convention' sake, strikes up a mock lament for the hard work and discom forts which he had known in life. When the boat touches th 151 See A. Bellinger, "Lucian's Dramatic Technique," YCS, I (1928) esp. pp. 21 ff. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 41 shore, Charon and Clotho return to the other side while Hermes takes the dead in charge. As they move toward the judgment seat, Micyllus and Cyniscus hold hands in the darkness, which reminds them of the Eleusinian Mysteries. At the court of Rhadamanthus, Cyniscus is judged first in order that he may then prosecute Megapenthes. He is ordered to strip that his back may be examined for any marks left by sins. When it is discov- ered that though he once bore many scars they have been practi- cally effaced by philosophy, he is assigned to the Isles of the Blest. Micyllus, who is next examined, is declared spotless and is allowed to join Cyniscus. Megapenthes is then brought forward and is prosecuted by Cyniscus. The men whom he has murdered and his bed and lamp appear as witnesses. Finally he is stripped and his back is found to be livid with the marks of his sins. Cyniscus suggests as a novel and fitting punishment for him that he be forbidden to drink the water of Lethe. So he is chained next to Tantalus fated always to be tormented by the memory of his life of luxury in the upper world. Helm apparently considers that the strongest argument against the conception of the Cataplus as an original creation of Lucian's lies in the duplication which he finds between the rôles of Cynis- cus and Micyllus. This he considers superfluous and inartistic; ergo, Lucianic. The points in which the two repeat each other he lists as follows: both are glad to leave life and lament that they were not called earlier (7; 14); neither has the obol to pay Charon his fare (19; 21); both punish the tyrant, the one hits him (13), the other sits on his shoulders (19); both are judged by Rhadamanthus before the others and acquitted (24; 25). He admits that the identification of their rôles is not complete ; 'Wohl hat sich der Schriftsteller Mühe gegeben, diese Wieder- holung nicht gar zu deutlich empfinden zu lassen."'152 If the loubling is due to Lucian, which character is the original? Obvi- usly, says Helm, it was Micyllus, since he has more individual- ty, and is a more exact antithesis to the tyrant. It was Micyllus, n his opinion, who pursued the tyrant and who prosecuted him t the judgment seat of Rhadamanthus. Cyniscus in the original as Menippus, and Lucian, when he changes his name, transfers o him much that was originally Micyllus'. How little valid this rgument is we shall see, I think, in an analysis of the piece. But first let us look at some points of similarity with the Necyomantia which Helm finds significant. His comparison be- tween the ferrying and judgment here in the Cataplus and the 152 Helm, op. cit., p. 65. 42 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY similar but more abbreviated scenes in the earlier piece proves nothing more than that Lucian here expands motives already used, a frequent practice of his. There are two details, however, on which he lays great emphasis. In both pieces Charon's ferry is crowded. In the Cataplus this leads to the amusing situation that Micyllus rides on the tyrant's shoulders (a situation which by the way, we shall see later, must be of Lucian's invention), in the Necyomantia it is superfluous, since Charon makes room for Menippus and his guide in spite of it.153 But the crowding of the ferry in the latter piece is brought in for a definite reason; it is an allusion to the many who have died at Elegeia. In the judgment scene too Helm sees a specific proof that the Cataplus uses up material left over from the Necyia in the fact that in it the bed and lamp testify against the tyrant, while in the Necyomantia our shadows are said to act as our accusers after death.154 It is true that if we put these together we shall have all a man's acts pretty well watched, but this is no proof that they occurred together in the original. To suppose that Lu- cian took them from Menippus and used the shadows in the Necyomantia, saving the bed and lamp for later use, is a bit fan- tastic-only less fantastic than the supposition that the lamp's opening words (ἐγὼ τὰ μεθ᾿ ἡμέραν μὲν οὐκ εἶδον˙ οὐ γὰρ παρῆν. ἃ δὲ τῶν νυκτῶν ἐποίει καὶ ἔπασχεν, ὀκνῶ λέγειν)155 are taken over directly and unintelligently from the original narrative of Me- nippus where they followed upon the accusation of Shadow. It is not unnatural for the lamp to disclaim knowledge of what hap- pened in the daytime, especially after Cyniscus has made a com- prehensive accusation. Let us go through the piece now and consider what difficulties there are in Helm's theory. The brief dialogue between Charon and Clotho at the beginning is, he admits, Lucian's own intro- duction. This conversation is interrupted by Hermes' arrival with the caravan of dead. Of the scene which follows Helm says 'dass sie in Menipps ‘Nekyia' sehr wohl eingefügt sein konnte; man braucht sich nur vorzustellen dass während Hermes mit seiner Schar herankommt, Menipp ans Ufer tritt und so Zeuge der Unterredung mit Megapenthes wird. ''15 There seems to him no difficulty in the fitting into narrative of a long description of a scene in which Menippus could take no part. The inventorying and embarking of the dead might be described, but the dialogu between Clotho and Megapenthes (which covers four Teubner 168 Helm, op. cit., p. 68. 165 Cataplus, 27. 154 Ibid., pp. 68 f. 156 Helm, op. cit., p. 72. ! LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 43 pages) would be rather long for a reported conversation in which the narrator had no part. If such a talk were summarized briefly in Menippus and Lucian expands it into an elaborate dialogue, it has become practically his own creation. In checking over the dead, Clotho asks "Where is the philoso- pher Cyniscus who was to die from eating the dinner of Hecate and the lustral eggs and a raw squid besides '17 This Cynic death, Helm has to admit, is Lucian's own jest since Cyniscus' original was living when he invaded Hades. But the philosopher's following remark, "What have I done that you should leave me on earth so long? Why, you nearly ran off your whole spindle for me! In spite of that, I have often tried to cut the thread and come, but somehow or other it could not be broken," and Clotho's reply, "I left you behind to observe and prescribe for the sins of "Helm suggests, would equally well have fitted the living Menippus.158 And it is true enough, they would fit any genuine Cynic. But they would not, it may be worth while to notice, fit the Menippus that Lucian pictures in the Necyomantia. There is nowhere in that piece any suggestion that the narrator would like to take up permanent residence in Hades. He went there with the express purpose to find how to live, and when he had seen the sights and consulted Teiresias, he was very eager to depart. There is no hint either that he considered himself an popoc and latpóc of mankind. Rather, he sought a doctor for his own soul and found none. man, After the long scene with Megapenthes, Clotho calls to Cynis- cus to help Hermes put the tyrant aboard. Megapenthes resents the indignity of being ill-treated by Cyniscus. "What, will a Cyniscus make bold to shake his staff at me? Did I not come within an ace of tricing you up to a cross the other day because you were too free-spoken and sharp-tongued and censorious?''159 This reference to the dangers to which abuse of tyrants subjected philosophers is very probably Lucianic, as Helm points out. He compares the way Demetrius was banished by Vespasian for his eproofs and the Cynic Isidorus by Nero.¹ 160 At this moment, a new character enters the picture: "Tell me, lotho, do you people take no account at all of me? Is it because am poor that I have to get aboard last!" To Clotho's question, "Who are you?" he answers, "The cobbler Micyllus." Helm would argue that in the original he was on the stage ever since 187 Cataplus, 7. 158 Helm, op. cit., p. 70. 159 Cataplus, 13 (translation by Harmon). 160 Helm, op. cit., p. 70. 44 BARBARA P. McCARTHY the supposed simultaneous arrival of Menippus and Hermes at the shore, that it was he, not Cyniscus, who helped to catch the tyrant and later to hoist him into the ship. But the person who did all this has been repeatedly pictured as a professional Cynic, which was surely not an avocation of the little cobbler. And if he had been so portrayed, we should have had a duplication in the original in the Cynic Menippus and the Cynic Micyllus. According to Helm's view, the shoemaker is now brought on the scene suddenly because he was present in the original and Lucian, although he gives some of his qualities to Cyniscus-Me- nippus, does not wish to omit him entirely. But it is possible, and to my mind much more probable, that he was introduced quite for his own sake. Lucian had given a reading of the Cock some time before, and Micyllus had won instant favor with the audi- ence. It now occurs to him that they might enjoy meeting him again under different circumstances. As he is a comic character and an old friend he cannot help being a success surely a suffi- cient reason for his introduction. It is inherent in his character that he will to a certain extent duplicate Cyniscus. He is poor; so that he, like the Cynic, welcomes death, and he shares the other's hatred for plutocrats and tyrants. As Cyniscus, his "double," is already safely on board the ferry, most of the scene that follows must in any case be attrib- uted to Lucian. The cobbler's aggrieved remark, "I have no lik- ing for such gifts as the famous one of the Cyclops-to be prom- ised 'I'll eat Noman last of all,' "'11 the only instance of the Cynic use of epic quotation in the dialogue, must be Lucianic. Charon and Clotho would certainly never have been so ungrate- ful to their assistant as to leave him to the last. Micyllus next proceeds to tell how gladly he, in contrast to the tyrant, made' the trip to Hades, since he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Already he is well satisfied with the place since he sees that "the paupers laugh, while the rich are distressed and lament.” At this Clotho breaks in: "Indeed I noticed some time ago that you were laughing, Micyllus. What was it in particular the made you laugh!" The cobbler's answer begins: пapoikŵv av › τυράννῳ πάνυ ἀκριβῶς ἑώρων τὰ γινόμενα παρ' αὐτῷ καί μοι ἐδόκ TÓTE loÓÐεÓC TIC εival. After describing how he used to marv. at the glories of the tyrant, he continues ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀπέθανεν, αὐτός τε παγγέλοιος ὤφθη μοι ἀποδυσάμενος τὴν τρυφήν, κἀμαυτοῦ ἔτι μᾶλλον κατεγέλων, οἷον κάθαρμα ἐτεθήπειν. οὐ μόνον δὲ τοῦτον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν δανειστὴν Γνίφωνα ἰδὼν στένοντα καὶ μετα- 181 Cataplus, 14. | I LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 45 C γιγνώσκοντα, ὅτι μὴ ἀπέλαυσε τῶν χρημάτων, ἀλλ᾽ ἄγευστος αὐτῶν ἀπέθανε τῷ ἀσώτῳ Ῥοδοχάρει τὴν οὐσίαν καταλιπών.182 The reading παροικῶν ἄνω τυράννῳ occurs in all the manu- scripts and is accepted by Helm, who interprets this unnamed tyrant as a survival of the fact that Micyllus in the original was the accuser and punisher of Megapenthes. "Eine Spur dieses Zusammenhanges scheint mir auch noch in der Rede des Mikyllos vor Klotho enthalten zu sein; danach hätte dieser auf der Ober- welt neben einem Tyrannen gewohnt und da gesehen wie gewaltig dieser während seines Lebens tat und wie klein und lächerlich er nach seinem Tode war. Auch dieser Tyrann ist eine Dublette von dem, der uns in eigener Person vorgeführt wird. ''188 Helm thus interprets the reference to mean that it was at some time past in the upper world that Micyllus saw a tyrant, who was his neigh- bor, die and realized how ridiculous he was when stripped of his luxury. But how does this explain the fact that Clotho has just seen him laughing? Was it the memory of his neighbor that aroused his mirth? This does not seem so likely as to suppose that they had both departed life on the same day and that it was in the lower world at the ferry that Micyllus laughed when he saw "what a worthless creature he had marvelled at." If we con- sider the words, "He was not the only one that I laughed at. When I saw the usurer Gnipho groaning and regretting that he had not enjoyed his money but had died without sampling it, I could not control my laughter," it becomes clear that both Gnipho and the tyrant are in the group of corpses. It is very un- likely that an anonymous tyrant would be introduced at this point with all the characteristics of the already prominent Mega- penthes. I should prefer to believe that he is the one to whom the shoemaker refers, and I would emend the text with Fritzsche and Harmon to read παροικῶν ἄνω τῷ τυράννῳ. This fits in with the knowledge that Micyllus has shown of the tyrant's past in his preceding speech. The cobbler's tyrant is not a faint double of Megapenthes, but is Megapenthes himself. Lucian, having once introduced his old friend Micyllus, does not hesitate to give him as large a rôle as possible. If he, like Cyniscus, knew the tyrant in life, so much the better. It adds a further interest to his charac- ter, as does the introduction of the usurer Gnipho, whose nightly worries he had once witnessed on his nocturnal trip through the city with Pythagoras the Cock. The party has been waiting for Micyllus to finish his rather long speech, which he does with "But why not go now? We can 162 Cataplus, 16. 168 Helm, op. cit., p. 66. 46 BARBARA P. McCARTHY : finish our laughing during the sail as we see them crying.” When Charon decides the boat is already full, Micyllus makes his at- tempt to swim, and is finally lodged on the tyrant's shoulders. This incident, which is one of the most delightful pieces of humor in the whole dialogue, again must be Lucian's. As I pointed out before, the capturer of the runaway tyrant would not be thus badly treated. It seems strange to me that Helm finds a duplica- tion of rôles in Cyniscus' striking Megapenthes with his club and Micyllus' sitting on the tyrant's shoulders. The little cobbler in his unconventional seat is a thoroughly amusing picture, quite different in essence from that of the professional Cynic with his ready cudgel. Cyniscus on the way across admits he has no obol and is al- lowed to help with the rowing. Here, in Helm's opinion, he is not filling the rôle of the original Micyllus but of Menippus. He be- lieves that since Dionysus was alive when he helped to row Charon's boat in the Frogs, it is the living Menippus who should here do the rowing.164 But there is no suggestion in Aristophanes that Dionysus could not have rowed just as well if he were dead. And why should Menippus have had to row? Surely whoever acted as his guide in the original would not have been so careless as to neglect to provide the necessary obol. On the trip across, the dead strike up a sad lament which be- gins οἴμοι τῶν κτημάτων—οἶμοι τῶν ἀγρῶν—ὀττοτοῖ τὴν οἰκίαν olav áлéliлov. The cobbler does not join in their wailing until Hermes says: "Micyllus, you are not lamenting at all, are you? Nobody may cross without a tear." That he fails to object to Cyniscus' silence is interpreted by Helm as further evidence that in the original the Cynic was the living Menippus and so was exempt from mourning.165 But Hermes' jocose remark does not have to be interpreted too literally. Its purpose is solely to moti- vate Micyllus' mock lament, and it is the sort of weakness in construction that Lucian would easily overlook. Micyllus "for custom's sake” begins, οἶμοι τῶν καττυμάτων-οίμοι τῶν κρηπίδων τῶν παλαιῶν—ὀττοτοῖ τῶν σαθρῶν ὑποδημάτων.16 This lanent and mock lament is a Sophistic touch like the plea and counter- plea in the Prometheus and is reminiscent of a device in the little diatribe On Funerals. In this latter piece a father is pictured ut- tering lamentations over his dead son. After his conventional words of grief, Lucian assumes that the son is permitted to speak for a moment and gives his father an illustration of a more fit- 165 Ibid., pp. 69 f. ܝܕ 164 Helm, op. cit., p. 70. 166 Cataplus, 20. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 47 ting threnody: "Poor child, never again will you be thirsty, never again hungry or cold! You are gone from me, poor boy, escaping diseases, no longer fearing fever or foeman or tyrant."167 The similarity of these motives in the Necyomantia and On Funerals is so great that we feel one must have inspired the other, but the content is so different that it is impossible to tell which is earlier. When the journey is over it is discovered that Micyllus has no obol. He doesn't even know whether one is round or square. In this Helm finds another significant duplication of Cyniscus. But that neither Cyniscus nor Micyllus has the money is contingent on their poverty, and since its lack is made known in different ways, the humor is thus piled up. As the company moves through the darkness toward the Court of Rhadamanthus, Micyllus says to Cyniscus: "Give me your hand. Tell me,-for of course you have been through the Eleu- sinian mysteries, Cyniscus-don't you think this is like them?” And his companion answers: "Right you are; indeed, here comes a woman with a torch who looks very fierce and threatening. Do you suppose it is an Erinys?'"168 The darkness and the jest at the Eleusinian mysteries are so reminiscent of the Frogs that one would not hesitate to assume direct influence if it were not for the Lucian-Menippus theory. But Helm again disregards Lu- cian's acknowledgments of indebtedness to comedy, and here, as in the ferrying scene, considers Menippus as the mediary be- tween Aristophanes and Lucian. "Eine Verhöhnung der Mys- terien," he says, "ist durch die Komödie angeregt und ist auch durchaus in kynischer Art so dass es naheliegt den Vergleich der fackeltragenden Tisiphone, der plötzlichen Erleuchtung im schwärzesten Dunkel mit den Spúµɛva in Eleusis für die kyn- ische Quelle anzunehmen.''169 But he adds: "Das Gespräch bei Lucian selber ist aber ungeschickt." It is true that Micyllus' re- mark to Cyniscus seems at first glance inappropriate, since the Cynics disapproved of initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries.170 But Helm does not help the matter by his alternate suggestion: "Man würde es verstehen, wenn Mikyllos die Worte zu einem andern spräche, man würde es auch hinnehmen, wenn etwa Me- nipp, d.i. Kyniskos, auf die Ähnlichkeit mit den eleusinischen Mysterien einfach hinwiese." Menippus was a Cynic too, and a comment on the similarity to the mysteries would presume an acquaintance with their form. 167 De Luctu, 17. 169 Helm, op. cit., p. 71. 168 Cataplus, 22. 170 Cf. Diog. Laert., VI, 39. 48 BARBARA P. McCARTHY In contrast to these possibilities, Helm considers Lucian's method of introducing the comparison "anstössig und nur durch die etwas fehlerhafte Ausführung eines vorgefundenen Motivs erklärlich.” Again the fact that a thing seems stupid is accepted as proof that Lucian is momentarily departing from his model. But since the Cynics of Lucian's time no less than those of Me- nippus' frowned on initiation into the mysteries,171 it is extraor- dinarily unlikely that he would have altered his source in order to indulge in an obvious error. I do not think this mistake proves that Lucian was unintelligently following (or rather, departing from) a source. I should be inclined to think that the thrust at the mysteries at this point was inspired directly by the Frogs. It is a thrust at the Cynics too, and the very best of the joke, as his audience would understand it, is Micyllus' calm assumption that a Cynic, one of those who hated the mysteries, should be an initiate: ἐτελέσθης γὰρ, ὦ Κύνισκε, δῆλον ὅτι τὰ Ἐλευσίνια. Now comes the trial scene where Cyniscus, Micyllus, and Mega- penthes are judged in order by Rhadamanthus. Of this Helm says: "Am auffälligsten ist diese Doppelgestalt (of Cyniscus and Menippus) ein und desselben Typus beim Gericht. Kyniskos lässt sich zuerst aburteilen, um dann seinerseits den Tyrannen an- klagen zu können; aber warum muss auch Mikyllos vor diesem an die Reihe kommen? An den wenigen Worten, mit denen er abge- tan wird, sieht man recht dass die Figur des Mikyllos dabei nicht mehr am Platz ist."'172 But the reason why Micyllus is judged before the tyrant is clear. He has been so prominent a character in the drama that it is not possible to omit his trial and though there is no vital reason for introducing it before that of Mega- penthes, it is natural to make the judgment of the tyrant the climax of the piece. If we assume an original in which Cyniscus and Micyllus were one and the same person, we lose the nice con- trast which the three furnish. Megapenthes is the thoroughly bad unrepentant sinner, Micyllus is completely virtuous without spot or stain, and Cyniscus is the great sinner who has been saved and reformed by philosophy. If we consider the satire as a whole, it may be admitted that it is very probably inspired by the Necyia, or at least by Lucian's own Necyomantia. The dead Cyniscus may very well be intro- duced on the analogy of the living Cynic Menippus, but this does not necessitate the assumption that details of his rôle are bor- rowed. Neither do the resemblances which we find between him 171 Cf. the attitude of Demonax; Demonax, 11. 172 Helm, op. cit., p. 66. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 49 and Micyllus prove that the cobbler was present in the original and here divides his part with Cyniscus-Menippus. Rather we have seen much that is opposed to this view. Combined with the influence of Menippus I believe that we have direct influence of Aristophanes' Frogs.173 A proof of this is to be found in Micyl- lus' reproach, ὦ Κλωθοῖ, ἐμοῦ δὲ οὐδεὶς ὑμῖν λόγος,174 a reminis- cence of the complaint of Xanthus, which is repeated three times in the Frogs: “ñeρì έµoũ d' ovdɛic λóyog''175 Since this sentence περὶ ἐμοῦ οὐδεὶς λόγος occurs in a scene which, as we have observed, would even on Helm's theory have to be Lucian's (since everybody was "taking account" of the tyrant's capturer), it is clear that our author himself had Aristophanes' comedy in mind in writing the dia- logue. And if so it is natural to attribute to him also the other reflections of the Frogs. The character of Megapenthes and some of the details of his trial where we find resemblances to the Last Judgment of Clau- dius in the Apocolocyntosis are very likely suggested by Menip- pus' Necyia.178 But the piece certainly exhibits a general influ- ence, not a slavish imitation. Toward the end of his chapter, Helm makes the statement: "Dass die hier gelieferte Darstellung nur ein Ausschnitt aus einer grössern Satire Menipps ist, wird durch die Tatsache erwiesen, dass sich die Szene am Totenfluss und vor Gericht in die 'Nekyomantie' einordnen lässt.""177 Let us suppose that Plato had conceived of the dramatic dialogue Crito as being laid on the day of Socrates' death instead of the preceding day. It could thus have been fitted into the narrative of the frame dialogue Phaedo, but would this fact have proved that they were originally one? Before dropping the Cataplus, we must look at the ever-present proof from historical examples. Most of the names in the dia- logue, like Megapenthes and Cyniscus, are descriptive and thus prove nothing. The philosopher Theagenes who died for the cour- tesan from Megara¹78 is almost certainly the Cynic whose sermon on the coming martyrdom Lucian describes at the beginning of The Life's End of Peregrinus,179 and so owes his introduction to Lucian. The name on which Helm lays most emphasis is that of the doctor Agathocles who has come to the lower world in com- 178 See Ledergerber, op. cit., pp. 44 48. 174 Cataplus, 14. 175 Aristophanes, Frogs, ll. 87; 107; 115. 176 O. Weinreich, Apocolocyntosis (Berlin, 1923), pp. 123–130. 177 Helm, op. cit., p. 78. 178 Cataplus, 6. 179 De Morte Peregrini, 3 ff. 50 BARBARA P. McCARTHY pany with those who died of fever.180 A doctor Agathocles who wrote a treatise Пepi Alaiτnc lived, we know, before Demetrius ó Xλwpóc, whose commentary on Nicander probably was written, says Wellmann, under Augustus.181 There is no reason for put- ting him back into the middle of the third century except the desire to make this passage refer to him and, referring to him, come from Menippus. But in any case Agathocles is such a com- mon name—it is borne by six different people in Lucian alone, and there are thirty-three listed in Pauly-Wissowa-that we are not justified in drawing conclusions from it. Helm finds further confirmation of his theory in Micyllus' reflections on the walk to the judgment-seat: "How dark it is! Where now is handsome Megillus, and who can tell here that Simiche is not more beautiful than Phryne?''182 Of the three people named, Phryne would of course be familiar to everyone and Megillus and Simiche are otherwise unknown. Helm very properly compares with this passage Menippus' words in the Necyomantia: “I could not distinguish Thersites from handsome Nireus or the mendicant Irus from the king of the Phaeacians or the cook Pyrrhias from Agamemnon. ''188 He then concludes that Lucian is employing in the Cataplus a sentiment from the Necyia which he had already borrowed in the Necyomantia, and so in order not to repeat himself is forced to employ untypical illus- trations.184 If this were so it would be the only time on record that Lucian felt squeamish about self-repetition. If there was a Menippean satire which in a general way corre- sponded to the Icaromenippus as the Necyia does to the Necyo- mantia, we do not have its title preserved. That such a satire existed is, however, very probable from the fact that Lucian in this dialogue also makes Menippus the narrator. The Endymiones and the Marcipor of Varro have been ad- duced as further evidence that Menippus wrote such a satire— but without any certainty. The eight fragments of the Endymi- ones are too disconnected to admit of any restoration. Hirzel and Helm think the title shows that the piece has to do with the moon and that a flight through the air is described. But Vahlen's explanation is just as possible that the Endymiones are the "sleepy ones" and that the theme of the piece is a discussion of sleeping and waking held on the occasion of a banquet.185 180 Cataplus, 6; cf. Helm, op. cit., pp. 77 f. 181 Pauly-Wissowa, R.-E., I, 759, No. 26. 182 Cataplus, 22. 188 Necyom., 15. 184 Helm, op. cit., p. 76. Vahlen, In Varronis Menipp. (Leipzig, 1858), p. 55. 185 LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 51 In the Marcipor, which is a "diatribe" on the childishness of the human race, Norden thinks he finds evidence in four frag- ments for the story of a disastrous attempt to fly to heaven, which, he suggests, Varro may have borrowed from Menippus to illustrate the puerile absurdities of astrologers.188 This view, which has been accepted by Hense, Knauer, and Helm, is opposed to the older theory of Riese and Ribbeck that what Varro de- scribed was a voyage and shipwreck as in the Sesculixes, not an airship-wreck. It is possible that Varro actually described a voy- age that was both on the water and in the air. In Fragment 276, "Here at the crossroads we embarked on the marsh ship which servants drag through the sedge by ropes, we clearly have a trip in a canal boat such as Horace tells of in his fifth Satire. But the storm which is described in Fragments 269, 270, and 271 may have caught up the vessel as Lucian's ship was whirled aloft in the Verae Historiae. After visits to lofty places, the fall to earth may be described in Fragment 272, "" at nos caduci naufragi ut ciconiae quarum bipinnis fulminis plumas vapor perussit, alte maesti in terram cecidimus. If this explanation is correct, then the Menippean satire which furnished the inspiration for this part of the Marcipor is one of the works that Lucian says he is parodying in the Verae His- toriae and Menippus is one of the philosophers that he would name if he were not sure the reader would recognize them with- out any label.187 If we could be sure of this, it would be a further proof-if more proof were needed—that Menippus was not a forgotten writer in Lucian's time. Whether or not we think either of these two satires of Varro can be used as evidence, it is probable that Menippus did write a Trip to Heaven which furnished the general inspiration for the Icaromenippus, the Jupiter Confutatus, the Jupiter Tragoedus, and the Deorum Concilium. The Icaromenippus, in which Menip- pus himself is the narrator, probably draws more directly on this model than the other pieces. But a brief analysis will show that even the Icaromenippus cannot follow Menippus at all closely. The introductory dialogue is certainly Lucian's own. The mo- tivation of the trip, the perplexity into which Menippus was plunged by philosophers, especially the physicists, may in part 186 Varro, Sat. Men. (Buecheler), frgg. 269–272. 187 Verae Historiae, 2. 52 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY be Cynic but is certainly also in large measure Sceptic.188 The method of ascent by means of the vulture's and eagle's wings is a parody on the Mithraic mysteries and so Lucian's own inven- tion.189 In Menippus' view from the moon, the mention of the Colossus of Rhodes and perhaps the lighthouse on Pharos may well come from Menippus. But if Lucian borrows his reference to the Colossus, which fell in 227 B.C., that does not imply unin- telligent transcription. The statue though fallen was still one of the wonders of the world. And why shouldn't Lucian's Menip- pus see it standing in its full glory? Didn't Lamb's companion on the Margate Hoy actually sail through its legs? Other points in his survey of the world seem more likely to be his own addi- tion. After Empedocles has shown him a cure for his short- sightedness in the eagle's wing, he gazes at life in detail, first the life of kings and then of common men. Among the former he describes a number of scandalous situations which range in date so far as they are historical from 359 to 279 B.C.190 That they are not synchronous seems to me significant. It is more likely that Lucian, citing in a Sophistic manner instances of immorality among well-known potentates of the past, would willingly be guilty of anachronism than that Menippus would add alongside of contemporary scandals others that had taken place nearly a century before. His audience would be too acutely conscious of the discrepancy. After finishing with the kings, Menippus says: "The doings of the common people were far more ridiculous.''191 But a Cynic would never find the ordinary man's life more ridiculous than that of the potentates. And among the common folk, we are shocked to find the Cynic Herophilus asleep in a brothel-not a nice thing for Menippus to say about a fellow member of his sect. Helm, probably because of Herophilus' compromising situation, is willing to admit that Lucian himself may have added the sec- ond half to the picture of the life of mankind. Not so Geffcken, who cites the passage as proof that in Menippus "liederliche Kyniker verspottet wurden. "192 The summary with which the picture ends: "Why mention the rest of them—the burglars, the 188 Schwarz, Lukians Verhältnis zum Skeptizismus, pp. 69 ff. 189 Helm, op. cit., pp. 104 ff. Hense, “Lucian und Menipp," Fest- schrift für Gomperz, 1902, p. 191, and Knauer, op. cit., p. 26, give fan- tastic symbolic interpretations of the wings. 190 Icaromenippus, 15; cf. Helm, op. cit., pp. 96 ff. Icarom., 16. 191 192 Neue Jbb., XXVII, 470. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 53 bribe-takers, the money-lenders, the beggars?''193 is certainly not from Menippus. When he himself, like most of the Cynics, begged for money, would he place beggars in the class with bribe-takers and money-lenders? Of the description of life in Heaven, some details may come from Menippus, but much also is similar to Lucian's own Dia- logues of the Gods. In the conversation which Zeus and Menippus hold on the way to the prayer-wells, Zeus asks why the Diasia has been so long omitted and why the Olympieum remains unfin- ished.194 Since in Lucian's time the Diasia had been reinstated195 and the Olympieum completed,196 it does seem that Lucian must have adopted these references from Menippus. But they prove direct Menippean influence only for this section of the dialogue, and it is very improbable that even this is any more Menippean than the conversation between Solon and Croesus in the Charon is Herodotean. The description of the philosophers which Zeus gives in his speech to the gods is too unflattering to the whole tribe to be an excerpt from Menippus. He says of them in part: "They censure and reproach their fellow-men; and whoever of them is the most noisy and impudent and reckless in calling names is held to be the champion. But if you were to ask the very man who is strain- ing his lungs and bawling and accusing everyone else: 'How about yourself? What do you really do and what in Heaven's name do you contribute to the world?' he would say if he were willing to say what is right and true: 'I hold it unnecessary to be a merchant or a farmer or a soldier or to follow a trade; I shout, go dirty, take cold baths, walk about barefoot in winter, wear a filthy mantle, and like Momus carp at everything the others do.' '197 This is too close a description of the very quali- ties on which the Cynics prided themselves to be attributable to Menippus. One dialogue of Lucian's, the Vitarum Auctio, has been con- nected with a definite satire of Menippus'-the Sale of Di- ogenes, concerning the content of which we have some informa- tion from Diogenes Laertius. 198 Helm has made a study of all the accounts of the Diogenes sale which occur in literature that might be influenced by Menippus in Stobaeus, the Crates Epis- tles, Epictetus and Philo and from them has tried to recon- 194 Icarom., 24. 198 Icarom., 16. 195 Plut., De tranquill. An., 20. 196 The Olympieum was dedicated under Hadrian in 131 or 132. 197 Icarom., 31. 198 Diog. Laert., VI, 29. 54 BARBARA P. MCCARTHY struct a Menippean original. It is an interesting attempt, but Helm himself has to admit "Es ist klar dass all unsere Kombina- tionen nur den Wert von Vermutungen beanspruchen können."'199 This satire of Menippus may, it is true, have given Lucian the inspiration for his auction of various philosophical types, but it could have given him no more than an inspiration. The setting, with Zeus as owner and Hermes as auctioneer, is adopted from the Syleus, a satyr drama by Euripides, in which Heracles is sold as a slave to Syleus.200 It cannot bear any close resemblance to the setting for a sale of Diogenes by the pirates. Helm finds a few parallels between the fragments of the Syleus and Lucian's Vitarum Auctio,201 and suggests that these may already have been adopted from Euripides by Menippus. But it seems odd to assume that Lucian adopted the setting from Euripides and de- tails from Euripides via Menippus. The correspondences between Lucian's dialogue and what we know of Menippus' Sale of Di- ogenes are very slight and are confined naturally to that section of the Vitarum Auctio which treats the sale of the Cynic-a small part of the whole. The reference in Diogenes Laertius would imply that the Sale of Diogenes was narrative, not dialogue: φησὶ δὲ Μένιππος ἐν τῇ Διογένους Πράσει ὡς ἁλοὺς καὶ πωλού μενος ἠρωτήθη τί οἶδεν ποιεῖν.32202 ،، Of the other works of Lucian which Helm includes among his Menippean satires, the Bis Accusatus and the Piscator are clearly written as replies to personal criticism, so that it does seem that Lucian might be admitted in these works, if in any, to have de- pended on his own inspiration. But no, Helm attempts even in these to find evidence for close copying of Menippus. An important part of his proof that the first half of the Fisher goes back to a Menippean original is based on a fragment of Varro's Eumenides: "et ecce de improviso ad nos accedit cana Veritas Attices philosophiae alumna.''208 The sudden approach of Truth corresponds, in Helm's opinion, to the manner in which Philosophy approaches Parrhesiades and the angry philosophers in the Fisher: ἡ δὲ ἤδη που ἀφίξεται . . . μᾶλλον δὲ ἤδη προσέρ- χεται. 204 But Philosophy, since they are expecting her to arrive on her daily walk through the Cerameicus, could scarcely be said to approach "de improviso." The parallelism here is not signifi- 199 Helm, op. cit., p. 250. 200 Nauck, Trag. Graec. Fragm., frgg. 689 ff. 201 Helm, op. cit., pp. 241 f. 208 Varro, Sat. Men. (Buecheler), frg. 141. 204 Helm, op. cit., p. 300; Piscator, 13. 202 Diog. Laert., VI, 29. LUCIAN AND MENIPPUS 55 (" cant, and it is even less so in the other points which Helm makes. 'Cana Veritas” he interprets as a translation of Lucian's ȧµvdpà καὶ ἀσαφὴς τὸ χρῶμα ἡ ᾿Αλήθεια.205 By far the most natural in- terpretation of cana is "white-haired" and if it were not for the desire to find parallels between Lucian and Varro, I do not be- lieve that anyone would think of interpreting it as άoapńc. Helm finds significance too in the description of Truth as "Attices philosophiae alumna." This he interprets as a reminiscence of the fact that in Menippus as in Lucian, Philosophy (whom Var- ro's Truth supplants) formed part of a larger group in company with Virtue, Temperance, Justice, and Truth. Helm's inferences from this fragment of Varro, like a good many similar studies in his work and elsewhere, exhibit ingenuity but they do not carry conviction. In the other dialogues which Helm includes in his treatment, I do not see that we have any evidence whatever for Menippean models. The conclusions in regard to them are based almost en- tirely on the two general arguments from historical allusions and typical diatribe commonplaces-both of which, we have seen, are very dubious sources of proof-and on the frequent repeti- tion of ideas which we find everywhere in Lucian. For in these satires, he never assumes that Lucian simply repeats himself but always that he gives different versions of a Menippean senti- ment. It will not be necessary to go into a detailed study of these other pieces. The fallacies in Helm's whole complex of proof have become sufficiently evident, I think, in our analyses of those dialogues in which he himself considers his arguments strongest. The hyphenated Lucian-Menippus who has appeared fre- quently in literary discussions since the advent of Helm's Lucian und Menipp should disappear from them again. Lucian is not a revised Menippus. We have every reason to believe his own admission that he did something novel and unusual when he yoked Comedy to Dialogue. And in content, no less than in form, he is the most original among the Sophists. 205 Piscator, 16. Um รูป " 1 +- ! ... : دا THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GRADUATE LIBRARY APR 20 1976 MAY DATE DUE DEC 1 0 1977 Form 9584 MAY 2 1978 - MAY 2 1983 Uns $ AS AN JAN 05 1934 1 1984- FEB 26 1985 ï MAR 27 P I 1936 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 00427 1329 Filmed by MAY 2 3 2001 Preservation DO NOT REMOVE OR MUTILATE CARDS } bas.*. * :