Lucian’s Laughing Gods: Religion, Philosophy, and Popular Culture in the Roman East 9780472133345, 9780472220977, 0472133349

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Lucian’s Laughing Gods

Lucian’s Laughing Gods Religion, Philosophy, and Popular Culture in the Roman East ❦

Inger N.I. Kuin

University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor

Copyright © 2023 by Inger N.I. Kuin All rights reserved For questions or permissions, please contact [email protected] Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-­free paper First published April 2023 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication data has been applied for. ISBN 978-­0-­472-­13334-­5 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN 978-­0-­472-­22097-­7 (e-­book)

In memory of Frederik Arends

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix



1

Introduction: Unquenchable Laughter

Chapter 1. Lucian in Performance: No More Hedgehogs

27

Chapter 2. Laughter-­Loving Gods: Anthropomorphism, Imitation, and Morality

53

Chapter 3. Rituals: Sacrificing to Hungry Gods

88

Chapter 4. Passions: Worship and Desire

115

Chapter 5. Politics: Cities of Gods and Men

155

Chapter 6. Mediations: Oracles, Seers, and Sorcerers

193



Conclusion: If There Are Gods . . . 

227



Note on Abbreviations

235

Bibliography

237



Index Locorum

271



Index Rerum

285

Acknowledgments

It is my great pleasure to acknowledge the many people who have supported me in my work on this book, which—­in keeping with its protean protagonist—­ has taken on many shapes over the years. I started this project in the Classics Department at New York University, and I wish to thank first and foremost my dissertation adviser Raffaella Cribiore for her tremendously insightful guidance and unflagging support. I thank committee members Joy Connolly, Richard Hunter, Christopher P. Jones, and David Konstan for reading chapter drafts and helping me improve the work in fundamental ways. During the next phase several colleagues commented on chapter drafts, book proposals, or even the whole manuscript in progress, and I would like to thank Jan Bremmer, Stephen Kidd, Ralph Rosen, and James Uden for their invaluable suggestions and feedback. In recent years I have benefited greatly from the collegiality and expertise of the members of The Second Sophistic Colloquium (TSSC), and I want to thank in particular Janet Downie and Bryant Kirkland for their thoughtful feedback on chapters of this book. Likewise, the members of the Early Career Group for Research in Ideas and Texts (EC-­ GRIT) generously read and critiqued parts of this book which are much better for it; thank you Giulio Celotto, Greg Given, Jane Mikkelson, and Zita Toth. I am also greatly indebted to the anonymous referees for their constructive feedback, and I thank Ellen Bauerle, Mary Hashman, and Flannery Wise at UMP for their kind support. I wish to thank my colleagues and my students at the Department of Classics of the University of Virginia for creating the collegial and stimulating environment that allowed me to complete this book. Finally, special thanks go to my friends near and far and my family for sustaining me with love and levity. This book is dedicated to the memory of Frederik Arends, who taught me Greek and the joy of asking difficult questions.

Introduction Unquenchable Laughter

People pursuing philosophy generally meet with one of two possible outcomes. Either they die with their false hopes intact, or they see through the treachery in time but stick with their sect nonetheless out of shame. The latter will praise their own circumstances and put as many others as they can on the same path, in order to provide consolation for their own deception through shared suffering.1 The source of this merciless observation is the fictional character Lycinus. In Lucian’s dialogue Hermotimus he successfully turns a student of that name away from philosophy, by arguing that the promises of happiness offered by the major schools of the day are unattainable and deceitful. The Stoics, who are Hermotimus’ chosen teachers and therefore Lycinus’ main target, hold out virtue as a destination, “like a city whose citizens are happy, exceptionally wise, universally courageous, just, prudent, almost gods.”2 Lycinus shows how far short the Stoic teachers fall of this ideal, and Hermotimus is forced to admit that he has never seen such a man (Herm. 76–­83). Though he is initially grieved at the time and money spent in vain, by the end of the dialogue Hermotimus feels liberated, and says: “I have shaken such a heavy mist from my eyes.”3 In Hermotimus Stoics and other philosophers lay claim to near divine well-­ being and virtue, even when they know that such claims are false. Throughout the dialogue Lycinus depicts philosophers and their students as snobbish 1. Herm. 75. 2. Herm. 22: ἔστω δή μοι ἡ μὲν ἀρετὴ τοιόνδε τι οἷον πόλις τις εὐδαίμονας ἔχουσα τοὺς ἐμπολιτευομένους . . . σοφοὺς ἐς τὸ ἀκρότατον, ἀνδρείους ἅπαντας, δικαίους, σώφρονας, ὀλίγον θεῶν ἀποδέοντας. I follow Macleod’s (1972–­1987) OCT edition of Lucian throughout, unless otherwise stated. For other authors I also used the most recent OCT editions available, and I will note whenever other texts were used. Translations are my own with a few exceptions, which will likewise be indicated. 3. Herm. 86: τοσαύτην ἀχλὺν ἀποσεισάμενος τῶν ὀμμάτων. For similar phrases in Lucian see Cont. 7 (as a Homeric quote from Il. 5.127–­28) and Icar. 14, cf. Solitario 2020, 577–­78.

2  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

elitists, who feel themselves far elevated above “the common rabble.”4 He puts a particularly bleak spin on the philosophical notion, which Epicureans and middle Platonists shared with the Stoics, that the gods exist in a state of blessedness to be emulated by humans. With this character Lucian has created a radically discordant voice who speaks out against dominant views within imperial philosophy, such as the exemplary nature of the divine, and the human responsibility for human thriving. This book argues that Lucian’s overall representation of the gods and their relationship to mortals in his comic speeches and dialogues is motivated by the same criticism.5 Lucian of Samosata lived and wrote in the second century CE. No ancient comic author featured the gods as often in his works as he did, yet the meaning of his playful representation of them remains contested. Lucian is either seen as undermining the gods and criticizing religion through his ridicule,6 or as not engaging with religion at all, featuring the gods primarily as literary characters.7 In classical scholarship there is a long tradition of discomfort with laughing or laughable gods, whether in epic or Old Comedy, based on the assumed nature of laughter as by definition desacralizing or antithetical to religious worship. The gods’ unquenchable laughter from the Odyssey, for instance, has often been claimed to be post-­Homeric, starting already with the scholia.8 In the 1930s Paul Friedländer had to argue against scholars who viewed the humor about the gods in Homer and Aristophanes as a sign of religious decline in their respective eras.9 Nowadays most agree that traditional religion was alive and well around the time when the Homeric epics were composed, and Aristophanes’ humor is generally understood as acceptable in its ritual context,10 yet many scholars still explain Lucian’s irreverent humor as a symptom of an alleged decrease in religiosity in the second century CE.11 Ancient historians, however, have  4. Herm. 1: τῷ πολλῷ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν συρφετῷ. Cf. Herm. 5, 21, 61, 75, 81.   5. Peterson (2016, 198) reads Herm. as a programmatic text for Lucian’s corpus not in terms of philosophical outlook but with respect to genre; she argues the piece defends Lucian’s “comic approach to philosophy as an important philosophical tool.”   6. Caster 1937; Berdozzo 2011; 2019c.   7. Branham 1989a, 125–­77; Whitmarsh 2013, 181; Richter 2017, 336–­38.   8. ΣH on Od. 8.333–­42. For a bibliographical history of this argument see Hunzinger 1997. I discuss the passage in chapter 3.   9. Friedländer 1969 [1934], 13. 10. Graziosi and Haubold (2005, 65–­75) downplay the “frivolity” of the Homeric gods (referencing Reinhardt 1960 [1938], 24–­25), because of their importance in cult for contemporary epic audiences. For Aristophanes see Parker 2005, 149–­52; Revermann 2014; Barrenechea 2018; Chepel 2020; contra Scullion 2014. 11. Lesky 1961; Gilhus 1997, 52–­57; Karavas 2009; Dickie 2010; Belayche 2011; Spickermann 2013a; McClure 2018, 1–­33.

Introduction 3

long since debunked the narrative of religious decline in the Antonine period.12 In order to understand the comic gods of Lucian, then, we need to think just as hard as in the case of Aristophanes or Homeric epic about what it meant to imagine as laughing and laughable gods who were being worshipped in everyday religious practice. Over the past decades interest in Second Sophistic literature has increased sharply, and in recent years the field of Lucian studies has been particularly vibrant. Scholars now appreciate his erudite and creative engagement both with literary predecessors and the cultural-­political environment of the day.13 The topic of religion, however, has been generally underserved both in the larger context of the Second Sophistic,14 and specifically with respect to Lucian.15 Additionally, in the resurgence of Lucian studies his works have primarily been framed as niche and elite writing, and even scholars who acknowledge that Lucian performed his pieces privilege the audience experience of reading in their approach to the works.16 In this introduction I will lay out the book’s methodology concerning religion, humor, the intersection of religion and humor, and intertexts relevant to Lucian, respectively, followed by an outline of the structure of the argument. I start, however, by briefly stating the book’s four main claims. First, Lucian performed his speeches and dialogues in front of a live audience containing individuals from diverse economic, educational, and cultural backgrounds, before circulating them as texts for reading, and he prioritized performance as the medium for sharing his works. His performances were part of Roman popular culture, in which humor generally played an important role, and his works often resonate thematically with pantomime, the fable, and joke traditions; they enhance our understanding of intellectual life in the Roman Empire as relying only partially on literacy.17 Second, Lucian’s works engage in topical, philosophical criticism by means of comedy, and they go beyond mere entertainment. Both in his dialogues and first-­person speeches, speakers can be undermined through satirical characterization but are still given a voice, rendering his works slip12. MacMullen 1981; cf. Rives 2010; Horster 2017; Bendlin and Nesselrath 2019. 13. On fictionality and literary reception in Lucian see Kim 2010, 140–­74; Camerotto 2014; Ní Mheallaigh 2014; Peterson 2019, 82–­142. On identity in Lucian see Whitmarsh 2001, 247–­94; Richter 2011, 138–­76, 229–­42; Andrade 2013, 261–­313; Bozia 2014; see also n25 below. 14. Cf. Goldhill 2006b. An exception is scholarship on Aelius Aristides, see, e.g., Petsalis-­ Diomidis 2010. 15. Exceptions are Lightfoot 2003 and Berdozzo 2011; on these see chapters 4 and 1, respectively. 16. E.g., a recent commentary on Merc. cond. acknowledges that the piece was performed, yet assumes a reading audience throughout, Hafner 2017b, 47, 53, 64, 67–­68, 172, 201; similarly, Ní Mheallaigh (2014, 146–­47), acknowledges performance of Lucian’s texts, but in her argument engages only with their reception through reading, see further chapter 1. 17. Cf. Toner (2017), though he does not mention epideictic oratory.

4  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

pery and open-­ended. It is nonetheless possible to trace ideological commitments in Lucian’s pieces: meaning is produced through the aggregate of voices, the dynamic between them, and their challenges to the audience. Humor does not weaken the author’s appeal to the audience, but rather strengthens it, as listeners and readers become implicated in the action through their own laughter.18 The third claim of this book is that in Lucian, as in Greek thought generally, comedic depictions of divinities were not necessarily desacralizing. In ancient religion laughter was accommodated to such an extent as to actually be a constituent of some ritual practices, and the gods were imagined either to reciprocate or to retaliate human laughter but are never deflated by it. Lucian ridicules the gods as characters in his comedy, but in doing so he does not automatically negate their status, or religion as such. Finally, with his depiction of the gods and of how they relate to humans Lucian challenges the dominant, universalizing philosophical theologies of his day. He refuses to interpret the gods as ethical models, which was a cornerstone of Roman imperial ideology since it presented emperors as emulating divine virtue.19 Lucian’s works are steeped in imperial philosophy, as he marshals Epicurean, Skeptic, and Cynic arguments against Stoicism and middle Platonism, and simultaneously makes fun of all the sects. Through his laughing but lackluster gods Lucian engages with fundamental questions about the nature of the divine and the universe. People had been debating these for centuries, but they continued (and continue) to be acutely relevant. His performances inhabited a space in between popular culture and systematic philosophical inquiry, borrowing elements from both. They contain anti-­hierarchical messages that undermine self-­serving elite moralizing, and would have appealed particularly to those in his diverse audience who were and felt socioeconomically underprivileged. In Lucian’s telling the universe is not fair or well-­run, and he aims to dismantle his contemporaries’ justifications, rationalizations, and systematizations of our messy universe, attempting to wipe “a heavy mist” from his audience’s eyes.

18. On the lack of control in Lucianic dialogue see Branham 1989a, 81–­104; on “open” and “closed” modes in imperial dialogue literature, and Lucian’s place on this spectrum see König 2008. 19. With this part of my argument I attempt to build the case that a question recently formulated by Andreas Bendlin (Bendlin and Nesselrath 2019, 206), whether Lucian might be criticizing the way second-­century CE elites attempted to use religious traditions for their own purposes, must be answered affirmatively.

Introduction 5

Thinking about the Gods In Lucian’s work On Sacrifices an unnamed critic of ancient religion introduces his topic as follows: What empty-­headed people do at their sacrifices and their festivals and their approaches to the gods, and what they ask for and what they vow, and what they think about the gods—­I do not know that anyone is so somber and sad that he will not laugh when he sees the silliness of their actions.20 The speaker tries to appeal to his audience by offering them a good time, saying that his subject matter will be humorous. He also appears to provide a description or perhaps even a definition of what modern scholars might call “ancient religion.” After giving a short list of things that people commonly do in cult practice—­pray, vow, make sacrifice—­the speaker adds what people think about the gods. He assumes that these ideas are also worthy of laughter, and that they are connected to the practices he wants to talk about. In the speech, to which I return at length in chapter 3, the speaker indeed treats cult practices alongside the ideas that according to him underlie practitioners’ activities. Lucian’s speaker quickly dispenses with an issue that in current scholarship on ancient religion is hotly contested: he sets aside activities and ideas pertaining to the gods as a distinct category of experience, and within this category he makes room not only for what people do, but also for what they think while doing it. Does this passage show, then, that for Lucian’s contemporaries “doing religion” did entail belief? And, that they would have perceived of their dealings with the gods as a distinct and definable phenomenon? The “definition of religion” in On Sacrifices raises several problems. Lucian places it in the mouth of a critic of the practices about to be described, who organizes and categorizes his subject matter for the sake of his argument. Furthermore, it appears that from the speaker’s point of view commendable ways of approaching the gods do exist. Although On Sacrifices does not explicitly offer a positive theology, he calls people engaging in vows and sacrifices “hate20. Sacr. 1: ἃ μὲν γὰρ ἐν ταῖς θυσίαις οἱ μάταιοι πράττουσι καὶ ταῖς ἑορταῖς καὶ προσόδοις τῶν θεῶν καὶ ἃ αἰτοῦσι καὶ ἃ εὔχονται καὶ ἃ γιγνώσκουσι περὶ αὐτῶν, οὐκ οἶδα εἴ τις οὕτως κατηφής ἐστι καὶ λελυπημένος ὅστις οὐ γελάσεται τὴν ἀβελτερίαν ἐπιβλέψας τῶν δρωμένων. The opening and closing of the piece are book-­ends: at Sacr. 15 the speaker sums up what has come before as ταῦτα οὕτω γιγνόμενα καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν πιστευόμενα, “the things done in this way and what the many believe.” On πιστεύω as propositional religious belief in Lucian see Morgan 2015, 142–­45.

6  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

ful to the gods”; that is to say, there are gods, but the worshippers whom the speaker is about to ridicule approach them in the wrong way, “because they have assumed that the gods are so base and low-­born as to need humans and to enjoy being flattered and to be vexed when ignored.”21 The speaker censures people whose understanding of the divine runs counter to his own, and his opening phrase, rather than a “definition of religion,” is a mocking summary of what he considers common wrong behaviors and ideas relating to the divine.22 Whether or not “religion” is a viable, let alone definable concept for the study of Greco-­Roman antiquity has in the past ten years been a subject of major debate. Neither ancient Greek nor Latin had vocabulary that maps onto the modern term “religion”; the Latin religio has since long been shown to be a “false friend,” and in Greek candidates like eusebeia and therapeia are too broad, encompassing also purely human interactions, while thrēskeia often has a pejorative undertone. More important than the absence of distinct vocabulary, is the fact that for the ancient Greeks and Romans the boundaries between what does and does not belong to “religion” were permeable, changeable, and negotiable.23 In spite of these difficulties I will use the terms “religion” and “religious” throughout in this book, importing second-­order, anachronistic terminology into my analysis of ancient practices and ideas. I have chosen this approach for two reasons. With this book I aim to disclose something about ancient practices and ideas pertaining to the gods also for readers outside ancient studies, which requires an act of translation to modern, interdisciplinary terminology, even if there is “no one or the modern concept of religion” either, as Heidi Wendt has rightly noted.24 Second, because this study is driven by an interest in how Lucian challenges his contemporaries’ assumptions about the gods that underpin their interactions with them, it will be helpful to classify both such assumptions and the interactions under one heuristic, even if what was “in” and what was “out” was unstable. Behind my use of “religion”-­terminology lies a broad, working definition proposed by Brent Nongbri, who starts from the idea that religious practices across cultures and historical periods at best bear a certain family resemblance to one another. I will hereafter use “religion” and “religious” as an analytical category to describe: “things involving gods or other 21. Sacr. 1: καὶ πολύ γε, οἶμαι, πρότερον τοῦ γελᾶν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐξετάσει πότερον εὐσεβεῖς αὐτοὺς χρὴ καλεῖν ἢ τοὐναντίον θεοῖς ἐχθροὺς καὶ κακοδαίμονας, οἵ γε οὕτω ταπεινὸν καὶ ἀγεννὲς τὸ θεῖον ὑπειλήφασιν ὥστε εἶναι ἀνθρώπων ἐνδεὲς καὶ κολακευόμενον ἥδεσθαι καὶ ἀγανακτεῖν ἀμελούμενον. 22. The speaker’s criticism is reminiscent of Plutarch’s criticism of superstitious people in De Superst. 164E–­171F; see Graf 2011, for other philosophical intertexts. 23. On Latin religio see Michels 1976; on Latin and Greek terms and on religion as a category see Nongbri 2013; cf. Barton and Boyarin 2016. On the history of the usage of “religion” and “ritual” in ancient studies see Bremmer 1998. 24. Wendt 2016, 32.

Introduction 7

superhuman beings and the technologies for interacting with such beings.”25 I will, however, refrain from ascribing “religion”-­terminology directly to any Lucianic or other ancient voices, so as to avoid inserting a modern descriptive tool into their discursive schemes of categorization.26 The second issue brought up by the speaker of On Sacrifices is the relation between, to use his words, what people “do” in their rituals for the gods and what they “think” and “believe” about the gods (see n20). In the second half of the twentieth century the notion of “belief ” was seen by most scholars as extraneous to Greek and Roman religion; studying religion meant, by and large, studying ritual. This emphasis on cult stemmed from the rightly observed absence of a unified theological system or creed in classical antiquity, and from a strong interest in the embeddedness of collective cult practices in the social life of the ancient city, the so-­called polis-­religion paradigm.27 But in recent years the tide has started to turn, in part under the influence of scholars adopting a cognitive science of religion (CSR) approach to Greco-­Roman antiquity. The difference between the polis-­religion model and the application of CSR to Greek and Roman religion can hardly be overstated: while the former starts from the cultural and historical specificity of the religions of the Greeks and Romans, its irreducible “strangeness” if you will, the latter assumes the universality of religion, arguing that religious beliefs arise from human cognitive structures shaped by natural selection, and that human mental tools generate invariable processes across cultures.28 Outside the CSR-­framework there has 25. Nongbri 2013, 157. On using “religion”-­terminology see also the arguments in Smith 1998 and Arnal 2000. “Religion” in this book is always Greek and Roman religion as infused with religious practices from the cultures with which each came into contact. As Padilla Peralta (2020) has recently highlighted, the destruction of places and the forced migrations of people wrought by Roman imperial expansion often led to the loss of locally disseminated knowledge of the gods; conversely, Roman religious practice was shaped significantly by Greek models, while each in turn was strongly influenced by other Mediterranean practices as well, see, e.g., Ando 2008, 43–­58; Parker 2011, 65–­73, 96–­97. The latter is clearly reflected in Lucian: the sacrifice in Sacr. is primarily Greek, Sat. is about the Roman Saturnalia, and DDS is about the sanctuary in Hierapolis in his native Commagene. On Lucian’s multiple cultural identities (Roman, Greek, and Syrian) see Swain 1996, 298–­329; 2007; Whitmarsh 2001, 247–­94; Elsner 2001; Goldhill 2002, 60–­107; Konstan 2010; Richter 2011, 147–­60, 168–­76; Andrade 2013, 261–­313; Kuin 2017; Derbew 2022, 129–57. On DDS see chapter 4, on gods and ethnicity see chapter 5. 26. Borrowing from anthropology, one might also call them “etic” (modern) and “emic” (ancient) categories, cf. Wendt 2016, 32–­33. 27. For the history of the polis-­religion model and its critics see Sourvinou-­Inwood 2000 [1990]; cf. Woolf 2003 [1997]; Rives 2010, 268–­73. For Greek religion Zaidman and Pantel (1992) are the main representatives of this model, for Roman religion Beard, North, and Price (1998), while John Scheid’s recent work goes even further by adopting an exclusively practice-­based approach, 2003 [1998]; 2016 [2013], see esp. 113–­24. 28. Larson (2016) is a book-­length application of CSR to ancient Greek religion, Martin and Pachis (2009) and Martin (2018) do the same for ancient Greco-­Roman religion broadly defined. Martin (2019) and Schörner (2019) use CSR for specific case studies in Hellenistic religion at Athens and sacrificial practice in Roman Asia Minor, respectively.

8  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

also been a resurgence of “belief ” as a concept in the study of ancient religion, often stemming from dissatisfaction with the polis-­religion model; a notable example is recent work that uses the notion of “lived religion” to focus on individual experiences and practices.29 In the context of this study of the gods in Lucian I will include among the vague “things” from Nongbri’s definition also beliefs as possible-­but-­not-­ necessary components of humans’ interactions with the gods. On Sacrifices shows a Lucianic character who addresses an audience with a diatribe the terms of which would need to ring familiar to them, and presents what people think about the gods as connected to what people did in rituals for the gods; the vagueness of the English term “things” in Nongbri’s formulation actually corresponds closely with the neuter plural forms (e.g., tauta) used by the speaker (see n20). In our second passage from On Sacrifices the speaker criticizes worshippers for erroneously “assuming” through their ritual practices that the gods have certain features (see n21). This appears to invoke what in CSR are called either “implicit,” “intuitive,” or sometimes “minimal beliefs”: unconscious assumptions about the world that guide our behavior but are unexpressed, in this case, the fact that gods need and enjoy attention from humans. Lucian’s speaker does not claim that people actively subscribe to this wrong understanding of the gods, but faults them for acting as if they do. By virtue of his saying it out loud, the gods’ need for attention from humans has become, were one to stick with CSR-­terminology, an “explicit” or “reflective belief,” discursive rather than implied, and open to debate and refutation. However, reading the opening of On Sacrifices straight, as simply making “explicit” an “implicit” ancient religious belief, renders it profoundly unfunny, and misses out on what Lucian tells us—­through humor—­about beliefs in second-­century CE religion. CSR’s concept of “implicit belief ” posits as a feature of individual cognition something that is in fact culturally and socially defined. The cultural practice of performing rituals for the gods indeed presupposes that the gods enjoy human attention, but this does not mean that every time someone performs a ritual for the gods they necessarily hold this “implicit belief,” consciously or unconsciously. In the introduction of her monograph on CSR and Greek religion Jennifer Larson gives the following as an example of an “implicit belief ”: “When I pray, Allah understands the language I speak.” She couples this with the “explicit belief ”: “Allah understands all languages because he knows 29. King 2003; Ando 2008; Parker 2011, 1–­39; Versnel 2011, 539–­60; Kindt 2012; Harrison 2015a; 2015b; Morgan 2015; Eidinow, Kindt, and Osborne 2016; Petrovic and Petrovic 2016, esp. 1–­37, 263–­98. For “lived religion” see Rüpke 2016a; 2016b [2011]; Wendt 2016; Flower 2017.

Introduction 9

everything.”30 The worshipper praying in their own language behaves as if Allah speaks their language, and, upon reflection, the worshipper indeed believes that this is so, because Allah knows everything.31 The humor in On Sacrifices derives from the inverse of this process: the speaker says that worshippers participate in rituals for the gods as if they assume that the gods “need humans and enjoy being flattered and are vexed when ignored” precisely in order to mock those who would disavow such beliefs, yet still practice sacrifice. The structure of ritual honors and offerings for the gods mirrors the structure of transactions such as gift-­giving between humans, and thereby appears to assume that the gods benefit from and even require human attention. But this inference was problematic for anyone believing in the self-­sufficient blessedness of the gods, espoused by most philosophical schools of Lucian’s day, and alternative explanations for the purpose and workings of rituals were sought (on these arguments see chapter 3). The speaker, describing the gods with prosaic, comic language,32 foregrounds the tension between the demanding and irascible gods that stand behind the ongoing cultural practice of sacrifice, and the dominant philosophical theology of Lucian’s contemporaries. He problematizes what he sees as an irreconcilability of “implicit” and “explicit” beliefs, and exploits it for the sake of humor. CSR has been claimed as a productive tool for elucidating perceived inconsistencies in ancient religion. For instance, Larson argues that Greeks honored Zeus Hypatos, Zeus Olympios, and Zeus Herkeios as separate deities on account of intuitive beliefs about their having different spheres of interest and different locations of worship, while the view that Zeus was one god who appeared “in various places under different cult titles” occurred in a “reflective, mythological mode”; the separate nature of intuitive and reflective cognition explains, according to Larson, why they “generally felt no need to reconcile these contradictory views.”33 With my approach to Lucian I, like scholars using CSR, also aim to avoid explaining away inconsistencies in ancient religion, and to acknowledge that ancient Greek and Roman practitioners did have beliefs about the gods. However, the fundamental inaccessibility of religious experience qua experience cannot be resolved by ascribing “intuitive beliefs” to worshippers “as experienced through religion in practice.”34 The motivations and mental states of individual practitioners are available only discursively when 30. Larson 2016, 12. 31. On the issue of what language the Greek gods speak in Lucian see chapter 5. 32. See n21 above for the Greek text. The verb ἀγανακτέω means “to be irritated” and can also be used of body parts; it is common in comedy, see Ar., Ra. 1006, Lys. 499; cf. BrillDAG s.v. 33. Larson 2016, 13. 34. Larson 2016, 12.

10  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

people disclose them, which is why studying religious experience means studying and interpreting narratives of experience, forcing us to grapple with the inevitable distortions, intentional or not, involved in such narrativization.35 Additionally, Lucian’s humorous problematization of tensions between beliefs implied by certain practices and beliefs likely to be expressed by practitioners shows that these two realms actually were not easily separable. With respect to the multiplicity of Zeus, for instance, Lucian’s Timon makes fun of the god’s many instantiations by suggesting that the poets merely fabricated them metri causa.36 This type of joke shows that Lucian and his contemporaries were well aware of the tension between practicing ritual as if Zeus is divisible yet also considering him irreducibly whole. Inconsistencies in ancient religion could indeed be held without reconciling them, likely through some type of mental compartmentalization; Lucian’s humor, however, shows that such disarming was only temporary, and that these inconsistencies could be activated at will.37 For a final illustration of the problematic nature of “implicit belief ” in the context of religion, I briefly turn to modern literature. A central character in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, the recovering addict Don Gately, prays every morning and every evening to a higher being, expressing gratitude for another day of sobriety and asking for continued support. Although the structure of this cultural practice clearly presupposes that a higher being who hears and heeds individuals’ prayers exists, Gately tells the reader at length that he cannot possibly fathom this to be true. He prays, and continues to pray, because his mentor at AA to whom he has entrusted himself tells him to do so. Gately acknowledges the therapeutic effects of his prayer, but he prays without believing.38 To argue that by praying Gately shows himself holding an “implicit” or “intuitive belief ” in a higher being who hears and heeds individuals’ prayers, we would have to ignore or disbelieve the character’s own 35. Nongbri 2013, 23. 36. Tim. 1; most of the epithets listed are attested in cult, some of them only in Homer, cf. Tomassi 2011, 195–­96. Compare Ar., Pl. 1153–­64 for an elaborate joke about Hermes’ many epithets, cf. Torchio 2001, 236–­37; Sommerstein 2001, 212–­13; Versnel 2011, 373–­74. X., Symp. 8.9 is the locus classicus for philosophical reflection on this issue, focusing on Aphrodite’s epithets. 37. Though much more can be said about CSR and ancient religion, notions like “implicit” and “explicit belief ” are in my view less helpful for understanding how ancient Greeks and Romans act and reflect vis-­à-­vis the gods than Veyne’s (1988 [1983]) metaphor of brain Balkanization or Versnel’s notion of productive inconsistencies (1990; 1993; 2011). Major, persisting problems for CSR are formulating consensus, culturally universal accounts of what is and is not “religious” or “counterintuitive,” accounting for innate disbelief and apostasy, and negotiating the culturally determined, especially monotheist biases of CSR. For an extensive critical evaluation of CSR in general see the contributions in Martin and Wiebe (2017), especially Guthrie (2017), Ambasciano (2017), and Saler and Ziegler (2017); Ambasciano and Pachis (2017) contains several critiques of Larson 2016 as well as a response from the author. 38. Wallace 1996, 442–­44, 466–­68.

Introduction 11

statements. It seems, however, far more likely that Gately’s case functions as an illustration of the messiness of religious practice. Wallace, rather than denying the potential for tension between our thoughts and acts in the realm of religion, shows an extreme mismatch of the two in order to evoke the lived inconsistencies of our real, everyday experience—­this is what Lucian does for the second century CE.39

Explaining Jokes Ancient laughter has received much attention over the last fifteen years with the publication of Stephen Halliwell’s Greek Laughter in 2008 and Mary Beard’s Laughter in Ancient Rome in 2014. Both authors refrain from using humor as a category, focusing instead on moments throughout antiquity when laughter is explicitly said to occur.40 While their approach has the merit of relying exclusively on the ancients’ own terminology, in studying Lucian we have to cast a wider net. Lucianic characters laugh frequently, and occasionally the audience is presented as laughing or about to laugh, but many of the moments of laughter that Lucian’s works would have elicited go unmentioned.41 To describe the laughter-­provoking (geloion) aspects of Lucian’s writing I will use the terms “humor” and “comic” in their modern, everyday sense. In contrast to “humor,” the term “comic” has clear ancient roots from the word for “revel” (kōmos), its derivation “comedy” (kōmōidia), and related terms; in antiquity these were applied most often to religious and theatrical contexts, and occasionally they extended already to mockery and ridicule more broadly. It is uncontroversial that Lucian’s performances aimed at making audiences laugh,42 but in trying to analyze how he did so in any given passage I am certainly at risk of killing the joke, after all, “a joke explained is a joke misunderstood.”43 I might also observe humor where others would not, or analyze a humorous moment in a way that others would not recognize. My explanation of a given 39. In using literary works to write about ancient religion I build on Feeney’s (1998) approach to religion in Latin literature. See Pucci (2002) on the gods in Homer in relation to religious experience, and Feldherr (2010, 142–­49) for the same issue in Ovid. Compare also MacRae (2016, 145), who argues for understanding “literature as a location for social reflection on religion,” and, with respect to imperial Greek literature, Goldhill’s (2006a) argument that writings on the divine were part of religious practice. 40. Halliwell 2008, 6–­7; Beard 2014, 18. 41. For an overview of laughers in Lucian see Husson 1994, 177–­81; for anticipated audience laughter see, e.g., Pisc. 27; Peregr. 2. 42. Key programmatic passages are Bis acc. 33 and Prom. es 7; cf. e.g., Branham 1989a, 26–­28; Sidwell 2014, 265; Rosen 2016, 147–­56. 43. Critchley 2002, 2.

12  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

passage, then, will often be one possibility among others, informed by the context of second-­century CE culture and society, literary traditions of humor and laughter known to Lucian and his contemporaries, and the assumption that some patterns of humor are universal and therefore recognizable across different cultures and historical periods. The question of how a certain work would have made an audience laugh, finally, is closely intertwined with what Lucian might have intended this laughter to do and signify. The study of the causes, objects, and functions of laughter spans the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, anthropology, (evolutionary) biology, cognitive neuroscience, and sociology. Early on, from the eighteenth century onward, efforts to formulate one overarching explanation of laughter dominated this field, but since the 1950s there has been an increasing emphasis on the polymorphous and polysemous nature of laughter instead. Nonetheless, three main concepts have emerged to dominate the field of laughter theory.44 The incongruity interpretation of humor argues that laughter is produced by incongruity between one’s expectation and what one experiences, which often involves the combination of two disparate elements or registers. In other words: laughter stems from surprise.45 Beard recently proposed a specifically Roman subcategory of incongruity, arguing that Romans found imitation, in particular when it falls short, especially funny. Galen, for instance, thinks that monkeys are humorous because they resemble humans, but are not quite the same.46 Second, the concept of laughter as relief, known primarily from Freud, posits that the release of excess energy that would otherwise be expended repressing a certain thought causes laughter and pleasure. While this account has been mostly discarded as a physiological explanation, its observation that laughter often arises out of circumstances involving shame, fear, or tension remains influential.47 Finally, many have argued that laughter is caused by a feeling of 44. Good overviews of the history of the study of laughter are Morreall 1987, 128–­33; Berger 1997, 15–­37; Critchley 2002, 1–­12; Hurley, Dennett, and Adams 2011, 37–­55. For arguments against unifying theories of laughter see, e.g., Monro 1951, 13–­19; Heller 2005, 1–­15; Nikulin 2014, 39–­44; Beard 2014, 39. 45. Beard (2014, 28, 117) traces the incongruity theory back to Arist., Rh. 1412A and Cic., de Orat. 2.255, 260; in its modern form it was formulated first by Hutcheson (2014 [1750], 44–­56), and expanded by Kant (1987 [1790], 201–­7), Schopenhauer (1910a [1844], 76–­80; 1910b [1844], 270–­84), and Bergson (1911 [1900]). 46. Gal., UP 1.22, 3.16; cf. Beard 2014, 27, 163–­67, 176. Compare also Lissarrague’s (1990, 235; 2013, 215) interpretation of Greek satyrs as humorous mirrors of human behavior. 47. Spencer (1911 [1860], 298–­309) introduced the release theory. Freud developed his version specifically for jokes, short punch-­line narratives that can be enjoyed only through sharing, but he believes that the mechanism mutatis mutandis also applies to the comic, which includes anything that makes people laugh, 1960 [1905], 290–­91. He offers a different explanation for humor, which in Freud has the narrow meaning of laughing at one’s own dire circumstances, 1999 [1927], 4541–­ 46. For criticism of release theory as a physiological explanation see, e.g., Hurley, Dennett, and Adams 2011, 44–­45; Beard 2014, 38–­40.

Introduction 13

superiority. Humor exposes the weakness of another, and by comparison the laugher feels better about himself or herself. This type of laughter readily lends itself to the exclusion or denigration of people who are constructed in some way as “other.”48 Halliwell’s study showed that for the ancient Greeks laughter was a Janus-­ faced phenomenon, functioning as a joyful, life-­affirming feature of human existence, or a dangerous expression of superiority and aggression, and many things in between.49 He argues that, similarly, in Lucian laughter is depicted as fulfilling a range of functions: from energetically powerful—­venomous or playful—­“laughter of life,” to absurdist, existential “laughter of death” that, from the vantage point of the underworld, denies the human condition any significance whatsoever.50 Using Halliwell’s analysis as a starting point for understanding what Lucian wanted to achieve by making his audiences experience laughter sets up a broad range of possibilities: on one end of the scale one could argue that Lucian provides laughter as joyful, life-­affirming entertainment, on the other end he could be offering laughter as negative, superior scorn of human existence as such. As stated in the opening above, this book will argue that Lucian intended his works to go beyond mere entertainment, which precludes interpreting his humor as play for the sake of play in Huizinga’s terms.51 Nonetheless, the lure of joyful laughter would likely be the first point of entry for anyone encountering Lucianic performance, compelling most (though probably not all) to take up the meaningful challenges posed by these works in the second instance.52 Ultimately, the laughter Lucian sought to provoke with his works covers the full spectrum of the laughter he featured in his works, as sketched by Halliwell. As he was preparing to compose “Lucianesque dialogues” of his own, the Italian philosopher Giacomo Leopardi wrote: For ridicule first to please, and second to give intense and lasting pleasure, that is, for its continuation not to be boring, it must be directed at something serious, something important. If it is directed at trifles, and 48. Superiority theory is rooted in ancient thought, see, e.g., Arist., Po. 1449A; Pl., Phlb. 48C–­ D; Quint., Inst. 6.3.7, though Plato and Aristotle do not consistently explain laughter in this way, cf. Halliwell 2008, 276–­302 (Plato), 307–­32 (Aristotle). The main modern representative is Hobbes, 1996 [1651], 43. 49. Halliwell 2008, 1–­50. 50. Halliwell 2008, 429–­70. 51. Huizinga 1950 [1938], 1–­27. On purely playful nonsense laughter in ancient contexts see Conybeare 2013, 80–­96; Kidd 2014, 118–­60. 52. Cf. Andrade (2013, 265): “What was mere entertainment for some could have been endowed with deeper values and significations by others.” On the importance of humor in ancient popular culture see Toner 2017, 176–­78.

14  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

things that are, I might almost say, beyond ridicule, apart from its giving no pleasure at all, it provides very little amusement and soon becomes boring. The more serious the object being made fun of, and the more important it is, the more amusing the ridicule.53 Leopardi’s claim that ridicule is more amusing if it is directed at something important, is echoed in Freud’s distinction between the “innocent” and “tendentious” joke. The former is “an end in itself and serves no particular aim,” the latter “does serve such an aim,”54 and is “especially favoured in order to make aggressiveness or criticism possible against persons in exalted positions who claim to exercise authority.”55 According to Freud, “a non-­tendentious joke scarcely ever achieves the sudden burst of laughter which makes tendentious jokes so irresistible,”56 and he expands the possible objects of tendentious jokes to include “institutions . . . dogmas of morality or religion, views of life which enjoy so much respect that objections to them can only be made under the mask of a joke.”57 Lucian’s humor is most often concerned with what is “serious” and “important,” and is thereby “tendentious.” This is especially true in the case of his treatment of the gods and humans’ relationships with them, where he criticizes through ridicule the dominant, universalizing philosophical theologies of the day. For Lucian, too, being an ambitious comic artist precluded a choice for merely innocent jokes.58 My analysis of Lucianic humor is indebted to all three main concepts of laughter theory. The experience of nonthreatening incongruity in a social setting has been established as a universal cause of laughter in humans and other primates, which serves, in turn, to strengthen in-­group social cohesion; shared laughter can simultaneously signal in-­group belonging and out-­ group exclusion.59 The fundamental, ahistorical pattern of the unexpected, one thing not quite going with another, is pervasive in ancient humor and in Lucian, although what in a given context is perceived as incongruous is 53. Leopardi 2013 [1821], 660–­61 = Z 1393–­94. 54. Freud 1960 [1905], 107–­8. 55. Freud 1960 [1905], 125. 56. Freud 1960 [1905], 114. 57. Freud 1960 [1905], 129. 58. Branham’s Bakhtinian analysis also views Lucian’s humor as subverting a “powerful and prolonged domination,” but points to the ideals of classical and classicizing Greek culture as the target (1989a, 123). On Branham see further n65 and n98 below, on Bakhtin see chapter 2. 59. The findings apply only to so-­called Duchenne laughter, i.e., laughter spontaneously arising from outside stimuli, Gervais and Wilson 2005.

Introduction 15

heavily determined by the cultural framework of a specific historical period.60 In his depictions of the gods Lucian often plays with the limits of imitation, in this case anthropomorphized gods imitating humans, bearing out Beard’s observation that Romans enjoyed especially the incongruity of failed imitation. One of her examples comes from Lucian’s own Fisherman, which suggests an awareness of the mechanics of this type of incongruity on his part. The piece features an anecdote about monkeys who have been taught how to dance, but forget everything they have learned when a spectator tosses them some nuts, causing the other spectators much laughter.61 Second, by casting Lucian’s humor as “tendentious” I import the Freudian notion that the comic provides a safe mode for expressing objections to dominant views of life, and rouses laughter when tension is temporarily relieved. This salubrious model of laughter is illustrated by a simile in, again, Fisherman, where jokes are said to be capable of “cleaning” and causing something “to shine brighter” just like the die does when it strikes gold coins.62 Third, in understanding Lucian’s comic treatment of religion as engaged in challenging and even criticizing the philosophical theology of his contemporaries, I also rely on the superiority model, which depicts laughter as exposing the weakness of another. This model, in turn, is referenced in Lucian’s Anachar­ sis, where Old Comedy is praised for deterring citizens from doing shameful deeds by ridiculing those who engage in such behavior.63 Nonetheless, the discrepancy between interpreting laughter positively, with Freud, as a cathartic safety valve, and viewing it negatively, as exacerbating aggressive sentiment remains sharp. With respect to Roman sexual humor, Amy Richlin declares this conflict ultimately irresolvable, yet her own Priapic model emphasizes the violence inherent to the laughter it seeks to explain.64 In contrast to most of the texts that Richlin analyzes, however, Lucian’s works always feature a multiplicity of viewpoints, either directly, in the case of the dialogues, by featuring multiple voices, or indirectly, in the case of the speeches, 60. See Kanellakis (2020) on the importance of surprise in Aristophanic humor. Barrenechea (2018, 179–­80) connects Aristophanes’ incongruity humor about the gods with incongruity in religion itself. On ahistorical vs. historicizing approaches to laughter see Halliwell 2017, 36–­38. Gervais and Wilson (2005, 399–­401) allow for the subsequent further development of basic, universal incongruity laughter for humans through language, learning, and culture in history. 61. Pisc. 36 with Beard 2014, 164. 62. Pisc. 14: οἶδα γὰρ ὡς οὐκ ἄν τι ὑπὸ σκώμματος χεῖρον γένοιτο, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον ὅπερ ἂν ᾖ καλόν, ὥσπερ τὸ χρυσίον ἀποσμώμενον τοῖς κόμμασιν, λαμπρότερον ἀποστίλβει. Cf. Rosen 2016, 149–­50. 63. Anach. 22. Nonetheless, even in this passage laughter is held up as potentially wholesome, because the evildoers “become better by being reproached” (ἀμείνους γὰρ οὕτω γίγνονται ὀνειδιζόμενοι). 64. Richlin 1992a [1983], 57–­80.

16  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

by satirically undermining the dominant voice.65 The audience is made party to the dynamic of the comic plot of each piece through their laughter, and is encouraged to cast aside and trample on various dogmas, yet the unstable nature of humor as such and of Lucian’s specific application of it prevent his comedy from becoming closed off—­the final responsibility for what their laughter means lies with his listeners and readers.

Laughing at Gods The mood on Mount Olympus is tense at the end of the first book of the Iliad. Zeus and Hera have been fighting over Zeus’ pledge to Thetis to support the Trojans, and their son Hephaestus worries that this will spoil the feast about to commence. Hephaestus attempts a solution often relied on by children when parents are fighting—­he tries to make Zeus and Hera laugh: Then all the other gods from left to right He served, drawing sweet nectar from the mixing bowl. And an unquenchable laughter rose up among the blessed gods As they saw Hephaestus bustling about the palace.66 By playing the clown Hephaestus rouses the laughter of his parents and of all the other gods. His strategy has perhaps been even more successful than he anticipated. But why are the gods laughing at him? One possibility, albeit slightly painful, is that the gods are making fun of his limp, put on full display by his temporary role as wine pourer.67 Yet, because it casts him as the passive victim of the other gods’ mockery, this interpretation fits poorly with Hephaes­tus’ earlier efforts to resolve the tension on Olympus (Il. 1.572–­94). In fact Hephaestus intentionally imitates and exaggerates the typical movements of a servant pouring wine, and the gods are overcome with laughter at the sight of him bustling about.68 65. Cf. Branham (1989a, 57): “Lucian uses humor to provoke the audience to consider the subject simultaneously from divergent, conflicting perspectives.” 66. Il. 1.597–­600: αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖς ἄλλοισι θεοῖς ἐνδέξια πᾶσιν / οἰνοχόει γλυκὺ νέκταρ ἀπὸ κρητῆρος ἀφύσσων· / ἄσβεστος δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν, / ὡς ἴδον Ἥφαιστον διὰ δώματα ποιπνύοντα. 67. Garland 1995, 79–­80; cf. Pulleyn 2000, 274 (who blames Hephaestus’ overall ugliness); Rinon 2006b, 3. 68. The scholia on Il. 1.584 (ΣbTA) and 1.588 (ΣT) read the passage this way, as well as several modern interpreters: e.g., Friedländer 1969 [1934], 8–­10; Griffin 1978, 7; Halliwell 2008, 62–­63; 2017, 43. The verb ποιπνύω is uncommon, and is typically used of servants busy at work. LSJ

Introduction 17

Hephaestus pretends to be something that he is not: a hard-­working human servant. The other gods enjoy his role-­play so much that they cannot stop laughing. This particular moment in the Iliad encapsulates several aspects of the complexity of anthropomorphism in ancient Greek polytheism. Even though laughter seems to be a very human affliction, the Homeric gods also suffer from it, just as they fall in love or experience jealousy. Second, Hephaestus’ successful strategy to make the gods laugh consists in appearing about as human as is possible for a god. By playing a bustling servant Hephaestus presses the boundary between gods and men, and with his play he delights the parties on either side of this boundary.69 The assembled gods function as spectators who are entertained by the comic spectacle Hephaestus makes of himself. The image of the spectating gods invites audiences to imagine Hephaestus’ antics in their mind’s eye, and to laugh along with the gods.70 As already noted by Paul Friedländer, those listening to or reading the epic are encouraged to join the gods in a community of mirth by echoing their laughter.71 In his dialogues Lucian presents the gods as laughing at themselves and at each other, or just in a laughable situation. Like Homer, he does so by casting them in overly human parts and predicaments, from insatiable gluttons, to busy bureaucrats, to scorned lovers. “You have never made a woman fall in love actually with me,”72 complains Zeus in Dialogues of the Gods. He is angry with Eros for making him take on a different guise every time he lusts after a woman. In the exchange Zeus sounds like a sulking actor who wants to be loved for who he is, not his roles. Also in Dialogues of the Gods, the precocious Hermes rouses Zeus to laughter by defeating Eros in a wrestling match, and steals his scepter while the father of the gods is off guard (D. Deor. 11). Lucian is, indeed, “addicted to both the idea and the enactment of divine laughter.”73 The unquenchable divine laughter of the Iliad shows that such depictions were translates it as “bustle about,” “make haste,” or “labor”; BrillDAG includes Il. 1.600 in the lemma, translating ποιπνύοντα with “bustle about.” 69. Rinon (2006b, 1–­8) has argued that even without playacting Hephaestus is closer to humans than the other gods, and that this is why they laugh at him. Parker (2005, 150) has argued the same for Hermes, Heracles, and Dionysus. In the course of this book it will become clear that this interpretation does not hold, since gods like Zeus (e.g., chapter 4, section 3), Poseidon (chapter 3, section 1), and Ares (chapter 4, section 2) can be made the subject of laughter too. 70. On the gods as an internal audience in the Iliad see Lovatt 2013, 45–­46; Myers 2015; 2019, 1–­25. 71. Friedländer 1969 [1934], 4. Burkert (2003b [1982], 110) follows Friedländer in reading divine laughter as “Rezeptionsvorgabe” for the audience on the part of the poet in the Iliad. Pucci (2002) argues that in Homeric epic the external audience in general is expected to copy the internal, divine audience’s reactions to events. 72. D. Deor. 6.1: ἐμοῦ δὲ ὅλως οὐδεμίαν ἥντινα ἐρασθῆναι πεποίηκας. 73. Halliwell 2017, 46.

18  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

part of how the Greeks imagined their gods already at an early stage, and that Lucian’s humor stood in a long tradition.74 Friedländer argues that when the gods laugh at each other in Homer, the divinities who are the object of the laughter are not damaged by it. Their honor and divinity remain fully intact. Rather than a threat to it, for Friedländer the capability of Homer’s gods to laugh and be laughed at is an affirmation of their blessedness and authority.75 In my approach to Lucian, Friedländer’s reconciliation of laughter and divinity in Homeric epic forms the foundation for likewise expanding the range of meanings of the laughter with and at the gods elicited by Lucian’s performances for his ancient audiences. Rather than a rejection of the gods, Lucian’s humor was another opportunity for engaging with and thinking about them; such thinking has free rein in a comic context, and may or may not include religious doubt. What made the ancient gods so prone to laughter, and allowed them to laugh and be laughed at within, to speak with Friedländer, the sphere of their blessedness? The roots of this appear to lie in divine anthropomorphism: imagining the gods in human form, displaying human emotions and behaviors. Anthropomorphism contains an irresolvable tension that consists in having to negotiate the precise extent to which gods are like and unlike humans.76 The existence of so many liminal figures on the fringes of the ancient pantheon—­ heroes, nymphs, etc.—­is a simple illustration of the difficulties involved in telling gods and humans apart. The (limits of) humanness of anthropomorphic gods are subject to humorous narrative treatments in many cultures: scholars have traced such motifs in medieval Germanic poetry like the Elder Edda,77 in Hindu mythical narratives like the Mahābhārata,78 and in texts belonging to the Japanese Shintō tradition like the story of Amaterasu in the Kojiki.79 Incongruity is at the heart of divine anthropomorphism, and, as a consequence, the fundamental root of laughter is always already present in this mode of imagining the gods.80 In the 1950s the Russian classicist Olga Freidenberg wrote Image and Con74. Halliwell 2017, 47–­48. 75. Friedländer 1969 [1934], 3–­13. 76. Cf. Burkert 1985 [1977], 182–­89; Henrichs 2010, 32–­35; Versnel 2011, 379–­95; Halliwell 2017, 49. On this issue see further chapter 2. 77. Reinhardt 1960 [1938], 16–­36; Gurevich 1992, 160–­76. Similarity to Homeric epic: Burkert 2003a [1982], 110–­12. 78. Siegel 1987. 79. Akima 1993. 80. As these examples suggest, laughter and humor seem especially prevalent in the context of polytheist divine anthropomorphism, but scholars have traced humor in the major Abrahamic religions as well; for Christianity see Gilhus 1997, 64–­108; 2011; Götz 2002; for Judaism see Berger 1997, 87–­95; Abicht 2011; Zellentin 2011; for Islam see Holtzman 2010; Marzolph 2011.

Introduction 19

cept, which, due to Soviet suppression of her work, was only published posthumously decades later. The study contains a lengthy discussion of Lucian, touching also on his treatment of religion: Much has been said and written about Lucian’s religious satire. This is wrong. His “religious satire” has a cult character. It comes from the Olympian line of the Iliad, through invective hymns and comedy, through iambics and the obscenities of fertility cults to the Greeks’ customary parody of everything sacred.81 As Freidenberg argues, rather than a satirical takedown of religion from the outside, Lucian’s comedy of gods was indeed part of a long Greek tradition of approaching the divine with laughter, in which literature and cult converge. The same tradition extended to Rome, where, for instance, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis playfully engaged with humanized gods.82 The anthropomorphism of the ancient gods cut across the media of literature, visual art, and theatrical performance, including (descriptions of) dreams and epiphanies,83 and the same was true for laughter of and at anthropomorphized gods. Caricatures in Boeotian and south-­Italian vase painting and in Pompeiian wall painting imagine gods and goddesses as ugly humans, while Attic vase painting and North African wall painting place the gods in highly comic situations.84 Stephen Halliwell has shown how in many long-­lasting ritual practices the ancients honored their gods with laughter and, often, obscenities.85 In some cases these rituals were connected through aetiological narratives to a mythical moment of divine laughter, turning ritual human laughter for the gods into an imitation and echo of their blessed laughter. Several laughter rituals for the gods are known also from Japanse Shintō, and there too they are linked through 81. Freidenberg 1997 [1954], 81. On Freidenberg see Braginskaya 2016. 82. On Seneca see chapter 5. On humor and the gods in Ov., Met. see Frécaut 1972, 237–­69; Galinsky 1975, 158–­209; Keith 2002, 245–­58; Dance 2020, 413–­23; Galinsky (1975, 162–­73) and Feeney (1991, 204–­5) view this humor as irreconcilable with religion, contra Dyson Hejduk 2009. 83. On divine anthropomorphism in dreams and epiphanies see Harris 2009, 23–­90; Platt 2011, 253–­92; Petridou 2015, 29–­105. 84. Caricatures of gods in vase painting: Boston MFA 99.533 (Boeotian kabeirion ware) = LIMC Hera 437, cf. Walsh 2009, 138–­39; Mitchell 2009, 270–­71; St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum B299 = LIMC Heracles 3373 (South-­Italian phlyax), cf. Walsh 2009, 89. Caricature of gods in Pompeiian wall painting: House of Menander 1.10.4, cf. Clarke 2007, 137–­39; on Greek mythological narratives in Roman art see also Newby 2016. Comic situations in Attic vase painting: Paris Louvre CA2192 = LIMC Monstra 90 (visual pun), cf. Mitchell 2009, 134–­35; Vienna 3691 = LIMC Hermes 820, cf. Van Straten 1995, 266. Comic situations in wall painting in Egypt: Amheida House of Serenos R1.2.1, cf. McFadden 2014. 85. Halliwell 2008, 160–­91.

20  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

aetiological narratives to divine laughter.86 Such comparanda bolster my contention that humor and laughter are not by definition desacralizing.87 The preexisting Greek and Roman habits of laughing with and about the gods, and in and about their religious rituals shaped the reception of Lucian’s work by second-­century CE audiences. Although—­with a few notable exceptions which will be discussed—­it is impossible to argue for direct influence on Lucian or his audience of such earlier (visual) narratives featuring laughable and laughing gods, or of older practices of ritual laughter, they do support the cultural embeddedness of Lucian’s comic engagement with the gods. The ongoing and flexible ancient comic practice vis-­à-­vis the gods, that is, the sum of its parts rather than any particular example, provided the framework into which Lucianic audiences would have fit his humor.88 However, rather than recount, diachronically, the cultural history of laughing and laughable gods on the shoulders of which Lucian’s comic performance stands, this book focuses, synchronically, on the cultural and intellectual environment out of which it arose and to which it responds.89

Lucian in Context The similarities in the form and significance of divine laughter between Lucian’s works and the Iliad and Odyssey are remarkable, and the same is true, mutatis mutandis, for the laughing gods of Aristophanes and Euripides. As has long since been observed, the intense engagement of Lucian and other Second Sophistic authors with “their” Greek literary past means that even a synchronic approach to this literature has to be cognizant of the influence of earlier models. In what follows I take it as given that Lucian himself, as well as a subset of his audience members would have been thoroughly familiar with Homeric epic, including some of the Homeric Hymns, many of Plato’s dialogues, much of Attic 86. Especially in the case of the worship of the mountain goddess Yama-no-kami, Abe 2006; cf. Gerbert 2011. 87. For a brief overview of some of these comparanda see Gilhus 1997, 131–­44. 88. This understanding of second-­century CE Lucianic reception is indebted to Charles Martindale’s work (1993) on Latin poetry, which in turn draws on the hermeneutic thought of Jauss (1970) and Gadamer (1975 [1960]); see also Whitmarsh’s (2006) caveat that one should look for multiple chains of reception (“recipience”) rather than one, fixed tradition. 89. My dissertation (Kuin 2015) attempted this approach, but an account of laughter in ancient Greco-­Roman religion should rather stand on its own, and cannot be accomplished within a study of Lucian. It remains a desideratum: Gilhus (1997) only offers a schematic treatment of laughter in ancient Greek and Roman religion; Schulten’s (2011) review of humor and ancient religion is likewise cursory.

Introduction 21

drama, and Menander’s New Comedy.90 Nonetheless, Lucian’s performances would also have been comprehensible and enjoyable without such familiarity, and they are, furthermore, in conversation with first-­and second-­century CE philosophical debates about the nature of the gods and the ancients’ ritual interactions with them.91 These debates, in turn, had their roots in early criticisms of the Homeric gods, but were still ongoing in the second century CE. The most important change with respect to the philosophical understanding of the gods in the interval between the composition of Homeric epic and Lucian’s second-­century CE performances pertains to the assumed moral status of the divine. Before Plato gods can be imagined and depicted as exhibiting good behavior and fair judgment, but their nature is not fundamentally good and just. Both in epic and in tragedy the Greek gods are often invoked as arbiters of justice, yet they themselves can, and do act in vengeful, jealous, and capricious ways.92 In Plato’s dialogues the notion of an exclusively good and just divine is introduced, and this new concept, in turn, is hugely influential in Hellenistic and imperial philosophy.93 In Epicurean, Stoic, and middle Platonist thought the gods are blessed, good, and exemplary figures to be approximated and imitated, as far as possible, by humans. Such an ethics of imitatio dei obviously stands in tension with the moral ambiguity and unpredictability of the traditional anthropomorphic gods of the Greek (literary) imagination.94 Furthermore, in Stoic and middle Platonist thought the divine is credited with an all-­encompassing just and philanthropic providence, thereby introducing the principle (and problem) of theodicy.95 90. The foundational piece is Bowie 1970; cf. Anderson 1993, 69–­84; 1994a; Goldhill 2001, 1–­26; Richter and Johnson 2017, 4–­5. Householder (1941) is an overview of quotation and allusion in Lucian; Bompaire (1958) is an in-­depth study of Lucian’s engagement with literary models. On Homeric epic and Lucian see Bouquiaux-­Simon 1968, 352–­74; Branham 1989a, 136–­40; Camerotto 1998, 175–­90; Zeitlin 2001, 224–­33; Kim 2010, 140–­74; Strolonga 2016 (on the Hymns). On Lucian and Aristophanes see Kock 1888; Ledergerber 1905; Bowie 2007, 34–­39; Sidwell 2014, 259–­74; Rosen 2016; Peterson 2019, 82–­142. On Lucian and Plato see Tackaberry 1930, 62–­85; Branham 1989a, 65–­123; Ní Mheallaigh 2005; Pass 2016; Peterson 2018. On Lucian and Attic tragedy see Karavas 2005. On Lucian and Menander see Karavas and Vix 2013, 187–­90. 91. In interpreting Lucian as sincerely responding to philosophy I continue, in a sense, the work of Van Eyken (1859) and Bruns (1888); for further discussion of the relation of my approach to theirs, and to recent contributions on Lucian and philosophy by Van Nuffelen (2011, 179–­99) and Berdozzo (2011, 191–­264) see chapter 1. 92. Cf. Versnel 2011, 151–­238. On Il. see Van Erp Taalman Kip 2000; on Hesiod see Strauss Clay 2016. 93. Bordt 2006. 94. On divine anthropomorphism and imitatio dei see Seeskin 2000, 91–­123. 95. In Plato’s corpus as a whole the nature of the divine and divine providence is not yet settled nor unambiguous, but middle Platonism focused on only a subset of dialogues, namely R., Tim., and Lg.; likewise, there were debates and developments within ancient Stoicism on the nature of divine providence, even if its basic outlines were consistent; on these issues see chapters 2 and 5.

22  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

Max Weber’s late articles were foundational for what we now consider the “sociology of religion.” In one of them he introduces a concept that is highly instructive for understanding the philosophical theologies of Lucian’s day, the “theodicy of good fortune.” Weber describes it as follows: In treating suffering as a symptom of odiousness in the eyes of the gods and as a sign of secret guilt, religion has psychologically met a very general need. The fortunate is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate. Beyond this, he needs to know that he has a right to his good fortune. He wants to be convinced that he “deserves” it, and above all, that he deserves it in comparison with others. . . . In short, religion provides the theodicy of good fortune (die Theodizee des Glückes) for those who are fortunate.96 It is through the same theodicy of good fortune that both Stoic and middle Platonist theologies in the Roman period were able to argue that “those who were at any moment in control deserved to be where they were,”97 and that those experiencing adverse outcomes had only themselves to blame, be it their lack of virtue, failure of understanding, or both. The theodicy of good fortune affirms the status quo, and legitimizes existing hierarchies. In the Roman Empire social hierarchies were replicated in religious practice, as illustrated vividly by sacrificial benefactions: those who are doing well can pay for large sacrifices, and, subsequently, can attribute their continuing to do well to the justice of the gods. In what follows I argue that Lucian’s performances encourage audience members to question this theological justification of elite privilege: if there are gods, would not the unfairness of the human experience be much better explained by imagining them, as Lucian does, as unreliable and incompetent? Lucian treats the big questions of what the gods might be like, and how we, as mortals, should grapple with their (possible) existence both in scenarios where the gods are present, in pieces like Dialogues of the Gods, Icaromenippus, and Tragic Zeus, and in exclusively human contexts, in such works as On Sacrifices, Lovers of Lies, and On the Syrian Goddess. Scholars typically privilege one part of the corpus over the other,98 but, in order to understand the place of the gods in Lucian fully, both types of works need to be considered together, as I set out to do here. Lucian is in conversation with first-­and second-­century CE 96. Weber 1991 [1916], 271. 97. Gordon 1990a, 238, see further chapter 5. 98. Berdozzo (2011) does not discuss DDS, Alex., Peregr., or Philops., while Branham’s (1989a) monograph is skewed toward pieces which have the gods as interlocutors.

Introduction 23

philosophy, and in what follows I connect him to such thinkers as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Apuleius, Maximus of Tyre, Diogenes of Oenoanda, Oenomaus of Gadara, Aelius Aristides, and Sextus Empiricus.99 Barring rare exceptions, it is typically impossible to show direct influence of these authors on Lucian, which is, in any case, not needed for my argument: Lucian’s performances contributed to the ongoing philosophical conversation of his time, and the texts of these imperial thinkers were part of the same conversation. I have chosen these particular texts because of their similarly public-­facing mode (oratorical performance or public inscription), their relevance to themes and questions in Lucian, and, for the most part, their chronological and geographical proximity. As is becoming increasingly clear, several early Christian authors operated in this shared intellectual environment as well; we will see Lucian sharing interests specifically with Tatian, Justin Martyr, and Aristides of Athens, and his curiosity about, and knowledge of early Jesus-­followers is on clear display in Peregrinus.100 Lucianic performance inhabited a space between systematic philosophical inquiry and popular culture. His works share themes, motifs, and ethical concerns with pantomime, the fable, and joke traditions.101 Recent scholarship has recognized the fable as a valuable source for ancient popular morality and religion.102 Its convergence with Lucian’s works further emphasizes the need to (continue to) rethink the boundaries between written and oral, serious and comic, reading and performance, intellectual and popular, and, in general, high and low. Lucian’s texts frequently display outsider positionality in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status, they appeal to popular culture, and Lucian made them accessible to a mixed audience consisting of people with diverse   99. On connections with Plutarch see Wälchli 2003; with Dio Chrysostom see Pernot 1994; with Apuleius see Mason 1979; Whitmarsh 2013, 75–­85; Fields 2013, 239–­40; with Maximus see Trapp 1997, xxxvii, xlvii; Lauwers 2015, 92–­103; with Diogenes see Gordon 1996, 44, 112–­15; with Oenomaus see Bruns 1889; with Aelius Aristides see Downie 2019; with Sextus Empiricus see Nesselrath 1992, 3474–­79. 100. See in particular chapters 3, 4, and 6. On connections between Christian and non-­ Christian literature in the early Empire generally see Eshleman 2012; Secord 2020; with respect to Lucian see Nasrallah 2005; Andrade 2013, 284–­87; Bozia 2014, 98–­151; on Lucian and Tatian see Nesselrath 2015. 101. On Lucian and pantomime see Lada-­Richards 2007; Schlapbach 2008. In chapter 5 I connect Lucian specifically to Babrius, who was likely a contemporary from Asia Minor. Lucian knew the Aesopic tradition: Icar. 10 (probably) references Perry 3 and 117, Pseudol. 5 clearly alludes to Perry 101, and Fug. 13 to Perry 322; at Herm. 84 Lucian quotes a full fable; Aesop is the jester of the Island of the Blessed at VH 2.18. On Aesop and Lucian cf. Bompaire 1958, 460–­63; Anderson 1994b; Holzberg 2002 [1993], 27–­29; Camerotto 2009, 115; Van Dijk 2015. The joke collection Philogelos postdates Lucian, but contains many jokes which were likely already current in his lifetime, see further chapters 3 and 6. 102. Morgan 2013; 2007; Bartonkova 2013.

24  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

economic, educational, and cultural backgrounds.103 As a consequence, the anti-­elitist messaging of the pieces, which challenges dominant philosophical theologies, communicates both upward and downward. Lucian’s characters pester fellow pepaideumenoi (the Greek shorthand for those who have received or lay claim to advanced education, paideia), calling out their arrogance and hypocrisy, but the humorous mode encourages them to get it and laugh at themselves; other audience members are given license to enjoy this pestering, and to relish seeing the high and mighty come down; everyone is asked to look with clear eyes at what kind of gods they hold dear, and why they do so.

Structure of the Book The first part of the book pursues two issues that are foundational for the remainder of the study, namely the nature of Lucianic performance, and the ancient interplay between divine worship and laughter. The first chapter, Lucian in Performance: No More Hedgehogs, starts out with a state of the question, tracing a common thread from the scholia, the earliest scholarship on Lucian and religion, all the way up to current interpretations of his complex meaning-­ making through first-­person speakers and other pseudo-­authorial masks. Next, I turn to the second-­century CE performance and circulation of Lucian’s works, and his intended and actual audiences. Based on a close reading of programmatic statements in Fisherman, Self-­Defense, Zeuxis, and Double Indictment, and an analysis of Lucian’s prose style, I argue that he most likely performed his speeches and dialogues in front of a mixed audience. This entails that we must situate Lucian’s writings in the broader context of second-­century CE popular culture and morality. The second chapter, Laughter-­Loving Gods: Anthropomorphism, Imitation, and Morality, investigates why for Lucian’s audiences laughing at comic representations of the gods was not antithetical to worshipping them. I recount how the persistent tradition of ritual laughter and the laughter-­loving gods from Homeric epic set off a philosophical debate on how the gods should be honored and represented, tracing it from Xenophanes and Plato, via Aristotle to Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Maximus of Tyre, and Aelius Aristides, and all the way up to Lucian’s Fisherman. The final section considers divine anthropo103. Merc. cond. is especially cognizant of socioeconomic difference. In reviving the possibility of social criticism in his works I do not mean to return to the notion of Lucian as anti-­Roman activist for the poor from Peretti (1946, 119–­37) and Baldwin (1961; 1973, 107–­13), see further chapter 1.

Introduction 25

morphism, using Dio’s Olympian Oration as an example of the incorporation of the gods’ humanness into imperial philosophical theology. In the second part of the book I turn to Lucian’s engagement with human-­ divine interactions. The third chapter, Rituals: Sacrificing to Hungry Gods, deals with the ritual of sacrifice, which, in Lucian’s telling, featured hungry gods eager to partake of the foods of humans. But what would happen if people stopped offering meat and other foodstuffs to the gods? Lucian takes this conceit from Aristophanes, and moves it to a second-­century CE context, where the influence of the philosophers allegedly is threatening to end sacrifice. By proposing that the gods would get hungry and bored—­depicting them as dependent on humans—­he provokingly inverts the dynamics of sacrifice (Tragic Zeus, Icaromenippus). Lucian’s fascination with meat sacrifice and its technicalities (On Sacrifices) coincided with more frequent and larger animal sacrifices in his lifetime. The fourth chapter, Passions: Worship and Desire, deals with love and sex. I argue that Lucian’s reworking of the age-­old stories of gods desiring humans and vice versa served to challenge the so-­called mentality of “new conjugality” of the Empire, in which gods were held up as models. In Dialogues of the Gods erotic desire, in gods as much as in goddesses, is violent and frightful rather than wholesome. On the Syrian Goddess contains a reckoning between Aphrodite’s extramarital passion and Hera’s conjugality. The protagonist’s devotion to the goddess of Hierapolis is humorously questioned—­a satirical response to the type of eroticized and exclusive worship found in Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Tales. The last two chapters treat Lucian’s interest in complex modes of communication with the gods. The fifth chapter, Politics: Cities of Gods and Men, concerns Lucian’s humorous representation of gods-­as-­citizens in the context of the complex web of allusion between gods, rulers, virtue, exemplarity, and religious worship in imperial ideology. Lucian uses the comic divine assemblies of Icaromenippus and Assembly of the Gods to attack Stoic ideas about the community of gods and men, and gods’ serving as models of political virtue. I revisit the question of Lucian’s treatment of emperor worship through a comparison with Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, and, finally, I show how in Double Indictment, Zeus Refuted, and Tragic Zeus the gods are challenged directly on the issue of divine justice. Their inability to provide good answers stands as an indictment of the theodicy of good fortune. In the sixth and final chapter, Mediations: Oracles, Seers, and Sorcerers, I turn to Lucian’s treatment of oracular practice and “sorcery” (a shorthand for ritual practices cast as nonnormative by the author or his characters) in such pieces as Lovers of Lies, Menippus, Alexander, Peregrinus, and Dialogues of the Hetaerae, as well as Oenomaus’ Exposure of the Charlatans,

26  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

Apuleius’ Apology, and the joke collection Philogelos. Both sets of practices are complex mediations between the human and divine realms, and embody close (perceived) links between human and divine agency. Lucian relishes painting such ritual practices in their baroque excess, but he challenges his contemporaries’ efforts to draw strict boundaries between philosophy, sorcery, and “proper” ritual practice that map the normativity of knowledge onto socioeconomic difference. He mocks both sorcerers and customers, but also their cocky detractors, reminding audiences that ultimately he, Lucian, is somewhat of a sorcerer too. The book closes with a brief conclusion in which I reflect once more, through an odd anecdote from On the Syrian Goddess about a statue of Zeus (possibly) devouring sacred fish, on the interpretative challenges posed by Lucianic humor concerning the gods. Because of comedy’s fundamental instability and open-­endedness Lucian’s gods, although they assertively destroy the theologies of others, ultimately preach epistemological humility on what they are like, and on the why of human experience.

CHAPTER 1 ❦

Lucian in Performance No More Hedgehogs

The earliest reference to Lucian outside his own works occurs in the treatises of his contemporary Galen, the medical writer. In a piece that only survives in Arabic, Galen relates an anecdote about a forgery of a Heraclitus text. Galen describes how Lucian wrote an obscure nonsensical treatise under Heraclitus’ name. When it was brought to a philosopher for interpretation and commentary, the man did not notice that it was a fake and set to work. Similarly, Galen adds, Lucian fabricated some nonsensical religious texts that fooled devotees, who dutifully attempted to interpret them. The latter might have been Lucianic imitations of the glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues” for which some second-­ century CE Christians were known.1 Galen’s account makes it clear that all of these fakes were exposed at some point, and this must be the main reason why none of them survive. With this anecdote Galen tells us three things about his contemporary Lucian: he was interested in philosophy, he knew the breadth of religious practices popular among his contemporaries, and he was keen to upset expectations about authorship and authenticity in the service of ridiculing the zeal of the scholars around him, broadly defined. The second oldest mention of Lucian’s name outside his corpus comes from the fourth-­century CE Christian author Lactantius. He relates the story of Heracles’ serving Omphale as a slave, in order to attack Heracles as a licentious god and a bad example for humans. Lactantius defends his use of the ancient poets as a source about the gods, saying that unlike the satirists they are reliable when it comes to myth: “Not Lucilius tells such stories, or Lucian, who spared neither gods nor men, but especially the men who sing the praises of the gods.”2 Critics of the gods might invent false slanders about them, but if the same information 1. Gal., In Hipp. Epid. 2.6.29; Strohmaier 1976; 2012; cf. Bremmer 2017. 2. Lactant., Div. inst. 1.9: non enim ista Lucilius narrat aut Lucianus, qui diis et hominibus non pepercit, sed ii potissimum, qui deorum laudes canebant. Text from Heck and Wlosok 2005.

27

28  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

comes from the poets, it must be true. Lucian, however, does tell the story of Heracles’ enslavement to Omphale on several occasions (D. Deor. 15, Hist. conscr. 10). Either Lactantius missed these passages, or he mentions Lucian on the basis only of his reputation but without having read any of his works. He might have known Lucian simply as a satirist of a bent similar to Lucilius’. Lactantius cites Lucilius repeatedly, and mentions his Concilium Deorum, a comic divine assembly (Div. inst. 4.3, 4.15). Lucian has a piece on the same subject and by the same title, which I turn to in detail in chapter 5. For Lactantius pieces like the Concilia Deorum of Lucian and Lucilius amounted to (humorous) criticism of the gods, whether or not he knew Lucian’s version firsthand.3 The respective accounts of Lucian in Galen and Lactantius prefigure a persistent pattern in the roughly two millennia of subsequent Lucian scholarship. In Galen’s anecdote Lucian is an anonymous author who hides himself in order to prank others. In Lactantius’ telling Lucian is an active and visible narrator who purposefully attacks gods and men. The question of whether Lucian is a mere buffoon, someone who puts on different masks for the purpose of comedy, or instead a hardheaded satirist waging war on the gods and human morals, has divided generations of scholars. This divide, in turn, maps onto the relative importance that studies of Lucian attribute to religion. The notion of Lucian as god-­slaying blasphemer was dominant in most scholarship from the medieval scholiasts through the first half of the twentieth century. In these studies religion takes center stage as a topic. In the decades since then scholars have become much more hesitant to ascribe any form of ideological intent to Lucian, and have instead focused on fictionality and intertextuality in his works. In these more recent analyses of Lucian the theme of religion plays a subordinate role, if any. Currently there appears to be a stalemate. On one side stand scholars who argue that behind Lucian’s masks stands a coherent worldview that can be described as “Lucian’s opinion,” with a subset of the interlocutors from his dialogues functioning as mouthpieces.4 On the other side stand those who consider Lucian’s views as fundamentally irrecoverable, and approach his corpus as a literary artifact, albeit reflective of the intellectual climate of Lucian’s time. The former type of scholarship focuses on the religious and philosophical commitments traceable in Lucian, the latter on the author’s engagement with Greekness, paideia, and the Greek literary canon.5 3. Ogilvie (1978, 82) reads the mention of Lucian in Div. inst. 1.9 as a spurious interpolation; Baldwin (1982) argues for authenticity. 4. E.g., Berdozzo 2011; 2019c; Belayche 2011; Spickermann 2009; 2012; 2013a; 2013b. 5. E.g., Camerotto 1998; Whitmarsh 2001, 247–­94; Kim 2010, 140–­74; Ní Mheallaigh 2014; Richter 2017; Georgia 2020, 73–­103.

Lucian in Performance 29

This book argues that we can indeed recover ideological commitments from Lucian’s corpus, and sets out to do so. Such a recovery, however, cannot be achieved by simply combining the viewpoints of interlocutors and first-­person speakers that putatively “stand in” for Lucian. Just as in ancient drama, dialogues produce meaning through the aggregate of voices they represent, and the dynamic between them.6 Even when Lucian uses a single speaker to narrate a piece, audiences are often encouraged to question the speaker’s reliability. The meaning or message running through Lucian’s works resided in the interaction between the author, the voices he created, and his audience. For all of its shiftiness and ambiguity Lucian’s work does, ultimately, add up to something: he prods his audiences to view the socioeconomic hierarchies of their time with clear eyes, and, more importantly, to distrust the religiophilosophical scaffolding used to uphold them. The first part of this chapter connects strands from the earliest Lucianic scholarship on religion, the scholiasts and onward, to current interpretations of the multilayered meaning-­making of Lucian’s texts. Lucian’s corpus was both a purposeful contribution to second-­century CE debates about religion and philosophy and a literary artifice with a perpetually obfuscatory authorial voice; throughout it offers criticism of elites, those with wealth or political power or both.7 In the second part of this chapter I argue that Lucian wrote his speeches and dialogues primarily for live performance, and that he, in fact, recited his own works. This means that Lucian would have been able to reach beyond just the modest segment of the population that was literate at the time. In the final section I show that Lucian indeed wanted to reach a diverse audience, spanning different economic, educational, and cultural backgrounds, and that it is likely that he succeeded, which renders the attacks on the rich and powerful in his texts more salient. Understanding the second-­century CE performance context of Lucian’s treatment of the relationship between gods and mortals is essential for interpreting his message.

Buffoon or Blasphemer? Long before he was popular with humanists like Thomas More and Erasmus, Lucian was enlisted as an ally by Christian commentators. Photius, in the ninth century CE, praises Lucian’s description of “the error and folly in their [the 6. Cf. Dubel 2015. 7. The first section of this chapter builds on the first section of Kuin 2020b.

30  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

polytheists’] invention of the gods.”8 Several other scholiasts, including the tenth-­century CE bishop Arethas, commend Lucian’s jokes about the gods of the Greeks and Romans, but they also find Lucian’s positions confusing. How can he fault the Christians for not recognizing the gods of the Greeks in Peregrinus, while ridiculing those same gods in other pieces? Arethas asks Lucian: “Do you still call them gods, whom you just prior, and rightly so, made fun of abundantly?”9 Another scholiast calls Lucian a “wretched brute,” and is exasperated because the author seemingly thinks gods worthy of sacrifice whom he just depicted as eagles and bulls, a reference to Lucian’s treatment of Zeus’ lust-­ fueled transformations.10 Confusion turns to indignation when they perceive Lucian as slighting Jesus or casting doubt on the existence of a divine being tout court.11 The scholiasts in their aporia, at a loss to understand how Lucian can ridicule the traditional gods and yet consider them worthy of worship, unwittingly already put their finger on a central problem in the scholarship: the mutability and elusiveness of the authorial perspective in the Lucianic corpus. Another issue at stake in their response is how to interpret laughter at the gods; I turn to this in chapter 2. In the centuries following Arethas and Photius, scholars and students increasingly came to value Lucian for his Attic language, literary style, and humor, as he underwent “a metamorphosis from pagan and ‘destroyer of the gods’ to the embodiment of laughter.”12 Subsequently, in a success story that is well-­known, Lucian became a star satirist and provocateur in the eyes of humanist and Enlightenment thinkers, both because of his perceived irreverence before the ancient gods and his masterful wit.13 In the twentieth century Lucian’s popularity waned dramatically, but he was still seen as “sincere crusader against . . . the pagan gods . . . and, above all, the superstitions, major and minor, of his time”;14 Caster’s monograph on Lucian and religion similarly con-

  8. Phot., Bibl. 128: τήν τε τῆς θεοπλαστίας αὐτῶν πλάνην καὶ μωρίαν. Text from Henry 1960.   9. Σ R ad Peregr. 13 (probably Arethas): ἔτι θεοὺς ὀνομάζεις, οὓς ὀλίγον ἔμπροσθεν, ἓν γοῦν τοῦτο καλὸν ποιῶν, ἀρκούντως διέπαιξας; The text for the scholia comes from Rabe 1971 [1906]. Cf. Russo 2012, 14, 18. On Peregr. see chapter 6. 10. Σ V ad Peregr. 13: μιαρὰ κεφαλή. 11. Respectively, Σ Vat. 1325 ad Philops. 16 where Lucian is called “godless” (ἄθεε); Σ Mosq. 315 ad I. trag. 47 where Arethas calls Lucian “impious” (τοῦ δυσσεβοῦς Λουκιανοῦ); and, Σ B ad Alex. 60 where Lucian is again “godless.” On the early Christian reception of D. Deor. see Ritter 2019. 12. Marciniak 2016, 221. 13. Robinson 1979; Mattioli 1980; Mayer 1984; Lauvergnat-­Gagnière 1988; Zappala 1990; Marsh 1998; Baumbach 2002, 27–­120. 14. Allinson 1926, 7. On orientalist cultural politics affecting Lucian appreciation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see Richter 2005.

Lucian in Performance 31

cludes that the author “railed against it without pity.”15 At every turn scholars who consider Lucian an important voice on religion, for better or worse, read his works through a biographical, historicizing lens: they interpret first-­person speakers and interlocutors in the corpus as mouthpieces for the historical author, even if this leads to considerable confusion, as it did for the scholiasts. Especially the few first-­person narrators named “Lucian” and several anonymous first-­person speakers have, for clear reasons, traditionally been identified with the author, as well as provocatively named interlocutors like Tychiades (“lucky one”), Parrhesiades (“free speaker”), the Syrian, and Lycinus.16 But protagonists such as Menippus, Cyniscus, the Epicurean Damis, and even Charon and Momus have also been understood to express views held by Lucian himself.17 Since the 1980s scholars have become increasingly attentive to Lucian’s authorial masks as tools used by him in order not to reveal himself, coinciding with renewed interest in the literary merits of imperial Greek literature.18 The application of this strategy is well illustrated, for instance, by the True Histories; the fantastical travel story is one of only two narratives in which “Lucian” appears as a character, and constitutes an elaborate game with truth and fiction. Audiences expecting to find out anything from this piece about the historical Lucian are playfully but emphatically denied, as “Lucian” takes them to the moon, an island of cheese, and other unlikely locales.19 In keeping with the divide outlined in the introduction to this chapter above, recent approaches to the complexity of the authorial voice in Lucian pay little attention to religion, as is the case for scholarship on the Second Sophistic in general.20 Conversely, recent scholarship on religion in Lucian is still focused on reconstructing the author’s personal attitude from the views expressed by characters in his pieces, which leads to contradictory conclusions, including attributions of agnosticism,21 “faintly Epicurean skepticism,”22 atheism,23 and

15. Caster 1937, 366. 16. Narrators named “Lucian”: Alex., VH. Fictive letters written by “Lucian”: Nigr., and Peregr. Anonymous first-­person narrators: Luct., Sacr., Astr., Somn., and many prolaliae, on which see further section 3 in this chapter. 17. Cf. Baumbach and Von Möllendorff 2017, 13–­57. 18. Saïd 1993, 253–­70; Clay 1992, 3406–­50; Dubel 1994, 19–­26; Whitmarsh 2001, 248–­54; Goldhill 2002, 60–­82; Humble and Sidwell 2006, 213–­25; Edwards 2008, 145–­54; Ní Mheallaigh 2010, 121–­32; Richter 2011, 146–­47; Camerotto 2014, 17–­40. 19. Cf. Goldhill 2002, 65. See further chapter 6 on the “Lucian”-­characters of Alex., Peregr., and VH. 20. On this trend, and some notable exceptions to it, see the Introduction. 21. Baldwin 1973, 118; Hall 1981, 204. 22. Jones 1986, 45. 23. Berdozzo 2019c.

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even Platonism.24 The work of Robert Bracht Branham on Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods stands out as an exception. By focusing “not on the question ‘What did Lucian really believe?’ but rather on the prior question of how his mythological dialogues produce their peculiar brand of meaning,”25 Branham concludes that Dialogues of the Gods are “far from . . . a covert attack on Homer’s Olympians,” but rather “among the last successful attempts in antiquity to revitalize their role in the literary life of a particular community.”26 The vitality of the Olympians—­as noted in the Introduction, they had never left and did not need to be revitalized—­in Lucian’s works, however, is not restricted to the literary realm; his performances aimed at making audiences think about their relationship to these Olympians and other divinities in their everyday lives. The complexity of Lucian’s employment of first-­person narrators and provocatively named protagonists shows that the author purposely wanted to get his audience thinking about performance, authorship, and conflicting voices. Their participation and their background is part of the meaning-­making set in motion by Lucian’s works,27 as are the characters created by Lucian. His “Lucians,” Momuses and Menippuses fulfill specific comic purposes in each piece, and the one “Lucian” or Momus can be quite different from the next. Both first-­person speakers and interlocutors often function as satirical personae, similar to the first-­person voices of Roman satire. Juvenal’s first-­person speakers, for example, do not simply represent the author, but are literary, satirical voices constructed by the author. The satirical voice is, depending on the piece, more or less sympathetic, comical, or trustworthy. The exaggerations or inconsistencies in the outrage of a satirical voice can transfer ridicule from the topic of the satire to the narrator himself. As a result the satirical message is undermined and becomes unstable.28 A potential pitfall of persona theory, as this approach has come to be known, is that it can render the satirical voice powerless and the satirical text empty: if the narrator is undermined entirely, to what is the audience expected to respond?29 While the satirical personae in Lucian are frequently undercut through humor, this does not unsay or erase their words. In the case of narrated 24. Dickie 2010. 25. Branham 1989a, 129. 26. Branham 1989a, 163; cf. Whitmarsh 2013, 181. 27. I am indebted here to the reader response theory of Iser (1974 [1972], xii) and Jauss (1970, 7–­37). See Whitmarsh 2006 for a discussion of reception and “recipience” approaches to VH. 28. For an overview of this debate see Watson and Watson 2014, 35–­40. On satirical personae in Juvenal see Braund 1992, 71–­86; Freudenburg 2001, 248–­58; Keane 2006, 13–­41; Plaza 2006, 168–­257; Rosen 2007, 220–­22. On the persona in Horace’s Satires see Yona 2018, 1–­5; his approach to tracing philosophical commitments in those texts resembles my undertaking to do so in Lucian. 29. Cf. (on Juvenal) Uden 2015, 3–­8.

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speeches the satirical voice is shown to be fallible and potentially ridiculous; the audience is made familiar with the point of view represented by the character, and given an entry point for challenging it. In the case of dialogues this challenge can already be expressed within the piece by a different character, requiring the audience to tally the score at the conclusion of each word battle.30 By using the dialogue form and satirical first-­person speakers in speeches, Lucian withholds explicit answers to the questions he raises, and makes audiences responsible for teasing those out instead. He did, however, push his contemporaries into a specific direction. Branham rightly argued that the (Olympian) gods are not Lucian’s primary targets; in the next chapter I show that merely painting them with a comic brush does not, as Karl Marx and later Albin Lesky would have it, kill these gods.31 Rather, when we have tallied the scores, it emerges that Lucian primarily tried to challenge the “theodicy of good fortune” espoused by the Stoics and Platonists of his day—­and wanted his audience members to do the same. As discussed in the Introduction, I use this Weberian term to describe the notion that because the gods are just and provident, humans experiencing good fortune are generally deserving of it, and vice versa. Lucian confronts this worldview with the unfair and unpredictable reality of everyday life, which would be much better explained by gods who are exactly as unjust and unreliable as early, pre-­Platonic poetry and thought imagined them. In recent decades several scholars have sought to trace an ethical or philosophical agenda in Lucian, but typically they conclude that his interest was superficial, that he did not know much about philosophy, and that he was only interested in entertainment and literary gamesmanship.32 Generally these studies restrict themselves to the explicit, often caricaturesque mentions of philosophers and philosophical sects in Lucian, and this yields only a partial, distorted view: most of the time Lucian engages philosophical ideas and arguments with30. Fields 2013 and Sidwell 2014 offer interpretations of Lucianic characters as satirical personae. Camerotto casts Lucian’s characters as “satirical heroes” (2014, 83–­105) who convince audiences through the contagiousness of laughter; those who are unconvinced simply do not laugh (2014, 321–­23)—­Camerotto ignores the possibility that they might laugh at the satirical hero instead. 31. Marx 1994 [1844], 61; Lesky 1961, 33. 32. Berdozzo (2011, 191–­264) concludes that Lucian was not interested in the philosophical theologies of his day; cf. Tackaberry 1930; Levy 1976, xix; Braun 1994, 76n2; Görgemanns 2009, 49. Van Nuffelen (2011, 179–­99) argues that Lucian uses caricatured versions of the philosophical creeds of his time like “strategies” (194) in a game of chess where Epicureanism and Cynicism beat Stoicism and Platonism, without taking a position himself. Contra Bosman (2012) who grants Lucian a solid understanding of Cynicism; Pass (2016) who pleads for Lucian as a devotee of and source on second-­century CE philosophy; and Solitario (2020, 29–­38) who demonstrates Lucian’s versatile use of the (pluriform) imperial Skeptic tradition.

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out naming their source. Another problem is that Lucian’s levity and accessibility can be mistaken for a lack of serious philosophical content, but what he offers is a critical engagement by other means, namely comedy. Lucian’s performances show that in the Roman world intellectual life did not exclusively rely on literacy.33 He participates in a popular culture in which humor played a very important role, from theatrical performance (mime and pantomime), to visual humor, to oral joke culture. At the same time, morality and ethics were not then (nor are they ever) the province only of members of the elite writing philosophical treatises: as Teresa Morgan has shown, we also need to look to the fable, to proverbs, and popular gnōmai if we want to understand Roman society and mentalities.34 Lucian’s comedy is wedged in between philosophical speculation and argumentation as it was carried on in declamation and treatises, on the one hand, and the omnipresent popular wisdom of fables and standard jokes, on the other hand—­it engages with both. With this book I propose an interpretation of Lucian in which the author’s literary and comedic strategies are inseparable from his ideological commitments. In some respects, crediting Lucian with a philosophical program is old-­fashioned.35 What has changed, though, is that we can no longer expect to receive this program ready-­made through mouthpieces for the author who figure in the dialogues. In Lucian’s philosophy by other means, the form is part of the message: it matters that these pieces are funny, and it matters that the audience is exposed to a multiplicity of voices. Lucian’s social criticism is not a call to political action,36 rather, it seeks to expose to the audience the flimsiness of the religiophilosophical certainties they are peddling or being told—­how they might act on gaining such insight is up to them. Understanding that Lucianic performances were charged with meaning and that they were popular public 33. Cf. Toner 2017. 34. Morgan 2007. 35. Nineteenth-­century scholarship saw Lucian as seriously engaging with philosophy. Bruns noted “the mockery and discrediting of forms of contemporary philosophy that were unsympathetic to him” (1888, 92), especially “Platonic ideas, Stoic dialectic” (1888, 95). Van Eyken in his dissertation De Luciano Philosopho defends Lucian against charges of being “a fickle and scurrilous person” (inconstantem et levem hominem, 1859, 53), concluding that “Lucian pursued an ethical program in writing his satires” (Lucianum satiris scribendis ethicum consilium persecutum esse, 1859, 60). 36. Peretti (1946, 119–­37) and Baldwin (1961, 199–­208; 1973, 107–­13) argued for Lucian as (anti-­Roman) activist for the poor; this view was dismantled by Hall (1981), and many have since elaborated on the ambiguity of Lucian’s relationship to Romans and Romanness, e.g., Swain 1996, 298–­329; Whitmarsh 2001, 247–­94; Elsner 2001, 123–­53; Goldhill 2002, 67–­89; Richter 2011, 147–­ 60, 168–­76; Andrade 2013, 261–­313. Peretti and Baldwin were right to point out Lucian’s receptiveness to the plight of the poor, but he is ultimately more interested in exposing the tension between lived (social) injustice and philosophical arguments for divine providence, than in working to change economic inequality—­which he appears to view as immutable, see e.g., Sat. with chapter 5.

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events, opens up a view of second-­century CE intellectual history as permeating all strata of society, not just the rich and powerful.37

Lucian on Stage Lucian’s dialogue Double Indictment is a mock trial of the genre of comic dialogue, whose creator, The Syrian, is prosecuted by both Oratory and Dialogue. Toward the end of the piece Oratory requests that The Syrian make his defense without her help, using the style of his new favorite, Dialogue, instead. Hermes, who is conducting the legal proceedings, rejects this proposal, saying: “That is implausible, Oratory; he cannot make his defense using the method of Dialogue all by himself, just let him make a speech also.”38 Lucian has the god defend The Syrian, and he puts a metaliterary joke in Hermes’ mouth: one performer (probably Lucian) has just recited the entire dialogue by himself, doing exactly what Hermes claims to be impossible. The literary character The Syrian and the historical author Lucian share that they both popularized the genre of comic dialogue. Double Indictment is a strong example of the author’s tendency to play with audience expectations about his relation to the interlocutors in his pieces. Of the Lucianic corpus about two-­thirds consist of comic dialogues and about one-­third of speeches. For the latter there has been a tacit consensus that they were written for performance, and indeed performed in front of a live audience, because they fit comfortably into the genre of oratory, but for the comic dialogues, precisely because of their generic ambiguity, the situation is more complex. Dialogue is typically associated with a reading audience, whereas comedy is associated primarily with performance. Much is at stake in determining whether the primary (intended) recipients of the dialogues were readers or listeners. If they were readers this means that the majority of Lucian’s output reached only an elite audience.39 If they were listeners there is at least the possibility that his works may have reached and appealed to non-­elite audiences as well. I argue that Lucian intended his comic 37. Eidinow’s (2016) phrase “popular theologies,” which she traces through Homeric epic and Aristophanes, applies to Lucian in the sense that he engages with both philosophical and popular theologies, and, through his performances, contributes to the latter. 38. Bis acc. 29: τοῦτο μὲν ἀπίθανον˙ οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε, ὦ Ῥητορική, μόνον αὐτὸν ἀπολογεῖσθαι κατὰ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ Διαλόγου, ἀλλὰ ῥῆσιν καὶ αὐτὸς εἰπάτω. 39. Harris’ (1989) fundamental rejection of mass literacy in the Roman Empire remains unchallenged, in spite of legitimate charges of pessimism against it, e.g., Corbier 2006 [1991]; Cribiore 2001, 21–­34, 147–­59; Woolf ’s (2015) argument for mass functional literacy uses a different definition.

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dialogues and his speeches for performance in front of a live audience, which was mixed in terms of socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, and, second, that it is quite likely that the author in fact did perform his works for such an audience. The first to argue for performance as the main medium for Lucian’s dialogues was Alfred Bellinger in 1928. Based on an analysis of the language of the dialogues he showed that a single performer could have performed Lucian’s dialogues in front of a live audience, and he argued that this was indeed the intended medium. Lucian uses proper names, vocatives, questions, first-­and second-­person verbs, imperatives, and first-­and second-­person pronouns to ensure that the audience knows at all times which character is speaking.40 This overabundance of signposting about who is speaking inside the Lucianic text stands in stark contrast to the situation in comedy, where having actors say, “there comes so and so,” or, “she is leaving,” as often as Lucian does with his characters, would constitute “a theatrical nightmare.”41 Obviously, at dramatic, multiactor performances the audience can see who is speaking, but in a one-­ man performance of dialogue it is helpful to signal changes of speaker within the characters’ lines, possibly in addition to gestures or inflections of the voice.42 When pieces have more than three interlocutors, Lucian organizes the dialogue into several separate scenes that function as subdialogues with two speakers each, in order to prevent confusion. The name of an interlocutor can be withheld or postponed for dramaturgical reasons. In one of the Dialogues of the Gods, for instance, the plot hinges on Ganymede not knowing that he is talking to Zeus, which is why his name is not given at first.43 Bellinger assumes that Lucian performed his works himself, with considerable success.44 In past decades many scholars have accepted Bellinger’s argument, but there has been little interest in testing his analysis or pursuing its implications.45 His 40. Bellinger 1928, 24–­32. Rohde (1914 [1876], 328n1) posited the possibility without investigating it. 41. Revermann 2006a, 49. The examples come from D. meretr. 2.3 and 2.4, respectively. 42. These signposts would also have helped ancient readers: the one surviving Lucianic papyrus indicates a change of speaker only with a high dot, POxy 69.4738, Obbink 2005, 173–­75. Jazdzewska (2018, 250–­52) shows that this is customary in papyrus fragments preserving Platonic and other dialogues, while dicolon or paragraphos can also be used. On early Lucianic reception through reading see further below in this section. 43. D. Deor. 10; cf. D. Deor. 2 where Pan’s name is withheld because Hermes does not know who he is talking to; on this exchange see Nesselrath 2010, 157–­58. Coenen (1977, cxl–­cxliii) argues that the speakers’ names printed in modern editions ruin such suspenseful moments, and omits them in his text of I. trag. 44. Bellinger 1928, 4, 24–­25. 45. E.g., Bompaire 1958, 564–­65; Coenen 1977, cxl–­cxlii; Jones 1986, 14; Branham 1989a, 18, 142, 225n4; Ní Mheallaigh 2014, 146–­47n12. Ureña Bracero (1995, 202) argues someone else was the performer. Favreau-­Linder (2009) deals only with the speeches.

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case, however, can be corroborated by looking at references to the performance of dialogues in Lucian’s texts. In general, claims from Lucianic first-­person speakers or recurring interlocutors cannot readily be applied to the author himself, yet some of their metaliterary remarks can be construed as programmatic. In several pieces Lucianic characters defend themselves against criticism from others, whether real or imagined, directed at (groups of) pieces written by Lucian. The characters’ statements about the literary production of these specific works do then appear to reflect, at least to some extent, on Lucian’s own composition. In Double Indictment Oratory charges The Syrian with abandoning her for Dialogue. In describing this transition she says: Instead of saying whatever he wants in a loud voice he braids together and spells out short speeches, for which he does not get wholehearted praise or loud applause from his listeners, but merely a smile, a restrained gesture of the hand, a small nod, or a sigh at the end of the sentence.46 Oratory implies that The Syrian was more successful with her than he is with his new companion, Dialogue. On her account the audience for the dialogues consists of “listeners.”47 She refers here specifically to the external audience that listens to the rhetorical performance of a literary dialogue, not to the imagined internal audience of a fictitious dialogue. Even though audience reactions such as nodding suggest that the imagined internal audience is meant—­such behavior fits better with philosophical interlocutors taking part in a dialogue than with rhetorical audiences, which were usually rowdy—­the verb “braiding” shows that The Syrian is reciting dialogues for an external audience as a performer. In Oratory’s description The Syrian strings together by himself the voices of several interlocutors into one piece for his listeners.48 Oratory manipulatively belittles The Syrian’s success as a performer of dialogue by alluding to the subdued reactions of audiences of philosophical dialogues in her description of the response of his rhetorical audience.49 46. Bis acc. 28: καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ λέγειν ὅ τι βούλεται μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ, βραχεῖς τινας λόγους ἀναπλέκων καὶ συλλαβίζων, ἀφ᾽ ὧν ἀθρόος μὲν ἔπαινος ἢ κρότος πολὺς οὐκ ἂν ἀπαντήσειεν αὐτῷ, μειδίαμα δὲ παρὰ τῶν ἀκουόντων καὶ τὸ ἐπισεῖσαι τὴν χεῖρα ἐντὸς τῶν ὅρων καὶ μικρὰ ἐπινεῦσαι τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἐπιστενάξαι τοῖς λεγομένοις. 47. Schenkeveld’s (1992) argument that ἀκούειν can mean “to read” covers only instances of ἀκούειν plus λέγοντος plus the name of the author in the genitive. 48. See Pisc. 26 for an audience attending a (fictitious) dialogue. On rowdy audiences at rhetorical performances see Korenjak 2000, 68–­149. Cf. AP 11.64 for ἀναπλέκω describing literary creation. 49. Cf. Braun 1994, 270.

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In his defense speech The Syrian, like Oratory, imagines the audience of his comic dialogues as listeners when he says: “I joined comedy to him [Dialogue], and this way I procured much goodwill for him from his hearers, who up to now feared his prickles and avoided picking him up as if he were a hedgehog.”50 He argues that Dialogue should be grateful instead of prosecuting him, saying that he was able to make Dialogue more agreeable to the audience. It is not clear whether The Syrian claims as his innovation only joining Dialogue to comedy, or also being the first to perform Dialogue. On either reading he boasts that he has made the previously unpopular hedgehog Dialogue an audience favorite through his novel approach.51 Lucian’s piece Fisherman confirms the performance scenario sketched in Double Indictment. In Fisherman philosophers attack a character named Parrhesiades for treating them and their ideas unceremoniously in the genre of comic dialogue in general, and in the dialogue Sale of Lives in particular, where representatives of philosophical creeds are auctioned off for low prices. Diogenes, who has been chosen by the other philosophers to speak in their behalf, says: But he calls together the best men, having thought about it and prepared for a long time, having written some slanders in a thick roll, and then he abuses in a loud voice Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle here, and Chrysippus over there, and myself, in a word, everyone.52 Diogenes’ remarks apply to the genre of comic dialogue generally and not to Sale of Lives specifically, because in the next section he introduces the performance of Sale of Lives as a new topic.53 Parrhesiades, then, declaims his dia50. Bis acc. 34: τὴν κωμῳδίαν αὐτῷ παρέζευξα, καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο πολλήν οἱ μηχανώμενος τὴν εὔνοιαν παρὰ τῶν ἀκουόντων, οἳ τέως τὰς ἀκάνθας τὰς ἐν αὐτῷ δεδιότες ὥσπερ τὸν ἐχῖνον εἰς τὰς χεῖρας λαβεῖν αὐτὸν ἐφυλάττοντο. Philosophers are compared to hedgehogs also at Pisc. 51. On The Syrian’s characterization of Dialogue as unappealing cf. Braun 1994, 363–­69. 51. The expression εἰς τὰς χεῖρας λαβεῖν (LSJ λαμβάνω I.1) suggests that The Syrian imagines Dialogue as a physical book, compare e.g., Origen, Cels. 4.53. A performer of Dialogue could still be meant if one translates “they avoided him as they would avoid picking up a hedgehog.” On the performance of Platonic dialogue before Lucian see below in this section. 52. Pisc. 26: ὁ δὲ τοὺς ἀρίστους συγκαλῶν, ἐκ πολλοῦ φροντίσας καὶ παρασκευασάμενος καὶ βλασφημίας τινὰς εἰς παχὺ βιβλίον ἐγγράψας, μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ ἀγορεύει κακῶς Πλάτωνα, Πυθαγόραν, Ἀριστοτέλη τοῦτον, Χρύσιππον ἐκεῖνον, ἐμὲ καὶ ὅλως ἅπαντας. Whitmarsh (2001, 264n76) argues against performance of Vit. Auct. because of Diogenes’ mention of a “thick roll,” but the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive, see further below in this section. 53. Pisc. 27: τὰ μὲν γὰρ τελευταῖα τίνι φορητά; The prosecuting philosophers of Pisc. shift back and forth between criticisms of Parrhesiades’ treatment of philosophy generally (e.g., Pisc. 4, 25, 27), his use of the genre of comic dialogue (e.g., Pisc. 26), and explicit references to Vit. Auct. (e.g., Pisc. 4, 27). Pace Pass (2016) who reads these pieces as a conflict over the relative value of learning

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logues loudly in front of an audience, according to Diogenes. Earlier in the piece Diogenes refers to Parrhesiades’ audience as “spectators,” and later on, in a specific reference to Sale of Lives, he describes how “those present” laughed at the performance.54 In Double Indictment, Oratory also used the phrase “in a loud voice” (Bis acc. 28) to describe The Syrian’s performance of speeches: Lucian’s fictional detractors use the same vocabulary whether they are criticizing him for his speeches or his dialogues. In You Are a Prometheus with Words, finally, the anonymous first-­person speaker reacts to someone having called him, indeed, “a Prometheus with words.” The piece is an exploration of the literary simile and of the myths of Prometheus, containing a list of ways in which the first-­person speaker could be similar to him. One possible reason is that the first-­person speaker creates lectures resembling clay figurines, while Prometheus famously made men out of water and clay: “But we, who come before a crowd and declaim our recitations such as they are, show you a few figurines, and our creation is entirely in clay . . . like that of doll-­makers.”55 The speaker draws attention to the visual aspect of live recitation, and clearly imagines a live audience. In a later passage the first-­person speaker presents himself as a performer specifically of comic dialogue: “Or rather I may seem like him in some other respect, in deceiving my listeners perhaps by placing before them bones covered in fat, comic laughter under the guise of philosophical solemnity.”56 Lucian’s “innovation” of comic dialogue is here compared to Prometheus’ famous offer to Zeus of bones covered in fat,57 while the audience of Lucianic dialogue, as in Double Indictment and Fisherman, is described as consisting of listeners.58 The passages just discussed all appear closely connected to Lucian’s own philosophy through biographies or anthologies and philosophers’ own texts, and applies Pisc. too narrowly to Vit. Auct. 54. Pisc. 25: πρὸς τῶν θεατῶν. Pisc. 27: οἱ παρόντες; cf. Ar., Av. 30, Ach. 513 for audiences referred to as οἱ παρόντες, with Ruffell 2011, 269–­71. 55. Prom. es 2: ἡμεῖς δὲ οἱ ἐς τὰ πλήθη παριόντες καὶ τὰς τοιαύτας τῶν ἀκροάσεων ἐπαγγέλλοντες εἴδωλα ἄττα ἐπιδεικνύμεθα, καὶ τὸ μὲν ὅλον ἐν πηλῷ . . . ἡ πλαστικὴ κατὰ ταὐτὰ τοῖς κοροπλάθοις. Cf. D. Chr. 42.4–­5. On sculpture in Lucian see also Somn. 2–­9, 13–­14 with Romm 1990. 56. Prom. es 7: μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ κατ᾽ ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτος ἄν φανείην, ἐξαπατῶν ἴσως τοὺς ἀκούοντας καὶ ὀστᾶ παραθεὶς αὐτοῖς κεκαλυμμένα τῇ πιμελῇ, γέλωτα κωμικὸν ὑπὸ σεμνότητι φιλοσόφῳ. I follow Kilburn’s (1959) text here, Macleod (1987, 88) prints a lacuna between καὶ and ἐξαπατῶν; the emendation derives from Arethas’ scholia. 57. Prom. es 3: τὸ καινουργόν. Cf. Hes., Th. 535–­64. For further Lucianic usage of the episode see chapter 3. 58. On the “innovation” referring to comic dialogue as such, cf. Branham 1989a, 28–­46; Camerotto 1998, 105–­20; Peterson 2008; Sidwell 2014, 260–­67; Rosen 2016; Billault 2017; contra Helm (1906, 281), who includes only D. Deor., D. meretr., and D. mar., and Hall (1981, 29–­37), who argues that only the “Menippean” dialogues D. mort., Icar., Nec., I. trag., and I. conf. are meant.

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literary production: because these three pieces describe Lucian’s production of comic dialogue in a general sense they can be considered programmatic. Taken together they show that Lucian thought of his comic dialogues as pieces for performance, seeing himself as the performer. In Fisherman Parrhesiades is attacked for writing and performing Sale of Lives. Similarly, Double Indictment, as discussed, presents us with one author-­performer: The Syrian “braids” different voices into one comic dialogue. The performances most likely were not theatrical: Lucian would have supported his delivery only with small changes in tone, and possibly some poses and gestures, but he probably did not use any props, costumes, or masks. He was, importantly, an orator and not an actor,59 a distinction that was tied up with high social stakes in Lucian’s time.60 In spite of these strong indications for one-­man performance of the dialogues by Lucian within the corpus, one might still argue that two (or more) performers could have performed Lucian’s dialogues, or that they were not performed at all.61 Regarding the first suggestion, it appears unlikely that Lucian would hire other performers with whom he would have to share the attention, and the strong evidence for a single author-­performer in Double Indictment and Fisherman further undermines this possibility.62 The birth narrative of Lucian’s comic dialogues as presented in the same piece also contradicts such a scenario. In Double Indictment Dialogue accuses The Syrian of contaminating the philosophical, Platonic original with elements from Old Comedy (Bis acc. 33), whereas Oratory argues that he fouled rhetoric with elements from dialogue (Bis acc. 28).63 For Platonic dialogues scholars favor a scenario of performance by one performer over dramatic staging, as did Lucian, who has his character Lexiphanes recite by himself a dialogue written in imitation of Plato’s Symposium.64 In sum, out of the three “parents” of Lucian’s comic dialogue—­rhetoric, dialogue, and comedy—­two have a performance tradition of a single performer. 59. Cf. Bellinger 1928, 24–­25; Ureña Bracero 1995, 202; Favreau-­Linder 2009, 442; Baumbach and Von Möllendorff 2017, 198. 60. See e.g., M. Aur., Med. 5.28, cf. Fantham 1989, 153–­54; Wistrand 1992, 30–­40; Gleason 1995, 102–­21. 61. As do Anderson (1999, 33), Bowersock (1969, 114) and Von Möllendorff (2000, 9–­10), who thinks only some dialogues were performed. Baumbach and Von Möllendorff (2017, 195–­99) argue for a mix of multiactor performances, solo recitations, and private reading as modes of delivery for the dialogues. 62. Dips. 9 powerfully describes the desire of an orator-­ performer for his audience as unquenchable thirst. 63. The affinity of Lucianic and Platonic dialogue is also reflected in the manuscript tradition, Andrieu 1954, 290–­91. 64. Lex. 2–­15. Cf. Plu., Quaest. 613A–­C, 711B–C; Demetr., Eloc. 226 for recitation of (Platonic) philosophical dialogues, with Blondell (2002, 22–­29) and Wilson (2012), pace Charalabopoulos 2012.

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Metaliterary jokes in Lucian about one-­man performance of dialogue further strengthen the case for this scenario. The defense of pantomime On the Dance contains a comparison by Lycinus of the dancer’s skill in (silently) acting out the different characters to the orator’s skill in assuming different “masks.”65 This could be read, like Hermes’ joke in Double Indictment, as a backhanded compliment to Lucian himself since he is in the act of performing the different voices of the dialogue alone.66 Finally, Bellinger’s observation about the overabundant signposting in Lucianic dialogue to indicate who is speaking bears repeating: if these pieces were performed by two (or more) performers these markers would be redundant, repetitive, and irksome, which would, it seems, be beneath Lucian’s ambitions and skills as an artist. The only dialogue excepted by Bellinger from his analysis is Fisherman, the same piece I just cited to corroborate the performance of Lucianic dialogue. Bellinger writes: “The stage is crowded, and it is hard to see how any ingenuity on the part of the reader could make it clear who speaks each time.”67 Lucian indeed abandons his usual practice of neatly dividing the action into separate subdialogues with two speakers each in Fisherman. He does adhere to his incessant use of proper names and vocatives, going so far as to let many characters refer to themselves by name, but there are moments in the dialogue when the audience would be genuinely confused about which philosopher is speaking.68 Yet another metaliterary joke in the piece suggests that this confusion might be intentional. Once the character Philosophy has entered the scene she demands that the philosophers pick one representative to state their case, because, she says: “It is not possible for all of you to speak at the same time.”69 The philosophers, as discussed in this section above, pick Diogenes, and in the remainder of the work there is even more signposting about who is speaking at any given time. The underlying theme of Fisherman is the sheer mass of sham philosophers, barely distinguishable from real ones. Not always knowing who is supposed to be speaking before Philosophy herself steps in to fix things is so much in keeping with this theme, that it suggests Lucian intentionally wrote Fisherman to be confusing when performed solo in front of a live audience. Unlike Bellinger, I see no reason to set Fisherman apart from the other dialogues, much less does 65. Salt. 65: τοῖς ὑποκειμένοις προσώποις, cf. Branham 1989a, 18; Andrade 2013, 274–­75. 66. On sophists and pantomimes generally see Lada-­Richards 2007, 137–­39. For more, similar metaliterary jokes see Im. 23 and Rh. Pr. 12. 67. Bellinger 1928, 35. Baumbach and Von Möllendorff (2017, 222) argue for performance of Pisc. as multiactor “dinner-­theater.” 68. Pisc. 1–­2 is particularly difficult to follow; Parrhesiades’ own name is not revealed until Pisc. 19, but it is clear that he is the accused party from the start. 69. Pisc. 22: οὐ γὰρ οἷον τε πάντας ἅμα λέγειν.

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the piece provide an argument against the performance of Lucianic dialogue as such. But this is not to say that his experiment is entirely successful. Lucian falls far short of his usual dramatic technique in Fisherman, and not all audience members may have been willing to put in the extra effort required to follow along with such a gimmicky piece. Galen’s anecdote, the only contemporary piece of evidence about Lucian’s life outside his own texts, unfortunately does not explicitly describe him as a performer. Yet, since his works show that he saw himself as an author and performer of speeches and dialogues, one would need to postulate a reason that discouraged him from doing so in order to argue that he did not perform his pieces. The excellent transmission of Lucian’s corpus and the existence of early (third-­and fourth-­century CE) pseudo-­Lucianic works argue against the notion that he was unpopular with his contemporaries.70 It is also clear that socially no shame or suspicion attached to performing as an orator. The influence and importance of traveling orators during Lucian’s lifetime have been demonstrated at length.71 Another possibility, that political sensitivity prevented Lucian from performing, also seems quite unlikely, since his works never explicitly court political controversy, even if they frequently contain social criticism. Last, a lack of interest among the public for rhetorical performances could not have kept Lucian from performing his works either. There is ample evidence, most notably in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, that Lucian’s contemporaries had a strong appetite for rhetorical performances.72 A good parallel for solo performance of dialogue just before Lucian is Dio Chrysostom, who wrote many dialogues that were performed, or at least were intended for performance by the author.73 In sum, the vibrancy of rhetorical performance culture in Lucian’s lifetime and his taste for fame and success as it exudes from the texts, in addition to the references to doing so in programmatic works, render it very implausible that Lucian did not perform his dialogues as well as his speeches. Performance, however, was not the only medium for Lucian’s works: his dialogues and speeches could also have a reading audience. The published text served to spread the fame of the orator through a wider area, preserving a piece after his lifetime for reading or reperformance, and allowing those who

70. Strohmaier 1976, 117; cf. Jones 1986, 21–­23; Hafner 2019; contra Henderson (2011, 28–­29), who insists that he had no success, but acknowledges that Lucian performed his works. See Rigolio (2016) on late antique Syriac translation of Lucian for didactic purposes. 71. The best works on this topic still are Bowersock 1969 and Schmitz 1997. 72. Cf. Bowie 1970, 5; Russell 1983, 1–­20, 74–­86; Korenjak 2000, 20–­45; Whitmarsh 2005, 3, 23–­40, 96–­100; Goldhill 2009, 98–­100. 73. Cf. Trapp 2000. On similarities between Lucian and Dio generally see Pernot 1994.

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did hear the performance to go back to passages they liked.74 Typically, Lucian presented his works to a live audience first, and only afterward published and disseminated them. In Self-­Defense an interlocutor says that a different Lucianic piece, On Hirelings in Great Houses, was performed “before a great crowd” and also read “privately among educated people (pepaideumenoi).”75 Twice, in Saturnalia (23) and Portraits (9), the publication and circulation of a piece is announced in its concluding section, perhaps to encourage the audience to buy the book, as it were, much as present-­day authors and scholars do at public lectures. The possible discrepancies between a published piece and its performance are demonstrated by a remark in Defense of the Portraits, where Polystratus, criticizing Lycinus for his excessive praise of Lucius Verus’ companion Panthea in Portraits, tells him to edit the piece even though it has already circulated.76 On most occasions Lucian probably first wrote his text down and rehearsed it before reciting it in front of a live audience; after the performance Lucian would likely distribute (a version of) the text among his friends and peers, who might then pass it on for copying to their friends. Not disseminating the text before a performance allows an orator to surprise his audience with the work. An anecdote in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists shows what could go wrong: an orator with a reputation for rehashing his work is exposed when audience members bring a script to the performance and start reading along (VS 579–­80). As this story illustrates, such reading networks had an inevitably elitist and competitive bent. Lucian’s piece Uncultured Man makes fun, albeit in an over-­the-­top satirical voice, of someone who is more concerned with owning books than understanding them: the work simultaneously ridicules such “uncultured” men and those who think themselves entitled by their own paideia to eviscerate them.77 So, although Lucian necessarily participated in the elite reading culture of his day by circulating his works in written form, he was also critical of it, and prioritized his live audience.

Words on the Ground When Lucian performed, who came to see him? Scholars disagree both on the composition and size of Lucian’s audience, and on the question of how many 74. On reperformance see Apol. 3: ὅρα ὅπως μηδεὶς ἔτι ἀκούσεταί σου ἀναγινώσκοντος αὐτό. At Pl., Phdr. 228A–­B Socrates describes how Phaedrus listened to Lysias declaim his speech repeatedly, and studied the text subsequently. 75. Apol. 3: ἐν πολλῷ πλήθει δειχθέν . . . καὶ ἰδίᾳ παρὰ τοῖς πεπαιδευμένοις ὁπόσοι ὁμιλεῖν αὐτῷ, cf. Hafner 2017a, 78–­79. 76. Pr. Im. 14. Orators typically edited their pieces before circulating them, Russell 1983, 81–­82. 77. See Johnson 2012 on imperial reading culture, with a discussion of Ind. at 157–­78; on Lucian’s cultivation of the corpus Lucianeum see Hafner 2019.

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people attended rhetorical performances generally. Those arguing in favor of large audiences estimate crowds from a thousand to many tens of thousands of people, citing orators’ own claims.78 A second-­century CE funerary inscription from Aphrodisias praises the dedicatees for putting on rhetorical contests that attracted not only the city’s own citizens but also those of neighboring towns, thus supporting such claims.79 Although most among the urban masses did not complete advanced education, they were sufficiently equipped to follow and enjoy rhetorical performances, because they had attended performances in the theater, been exposed to paintings, mosaics, statues, and iconography on coins, and regularly heard declamations.80 Scholars arguing against large rhetorical audiences view the claims of orators about their own audiences as boastful, and point to the limited capacity of the venues where rhetorical performances are often thought to have taken place, such as council halls and auditoria. On this view sophistic performances attracted only between a few dozen and a few hundred people, primarily members of the elite.81 The debate about the size of the second-­century CE rhetorical audiences revolves around three questions. How much stock should be placed in remarks about audience size from orators? Where did performances take place and how large were these venues? And, last, did the likely cultural baggage of the imperial urban population match the level of paideia required to enjoy a rhetorical performance? For Lucian’s performances specifically many scholars assume a small audience, consisting exclusively of friends and fellow orators, while some argue that the audience size could vary from a group of friends to a big crowd depending on the piece or the occasion.82 The debate about the size and background of Lucian’s audience follows the pattern of the discussion about rhetorical audiences in general. To argue for a small elite audience for Lucian’s works a passage from Fisherman has been used, where Diogenes says that Parrhesiades “gathers the best men” for his performances.83 Just a few lines before, however, Diogenes has referred to Parrhesiades’ audience as “the multitudes,” “the many,” and “the 78. E.g., Aristid., Or. 51.29–­34; D. Chr. 32.2; cf. Russell 1983, 76; Schmitz 1997, 160–­62; Anderson 1993, 8; Lauwers 2011, 232; Pernot 2015, 78–­82. 79. IAph 12.29ii = MAMA 8, 429b 19–­21: ὡς ἐπὶ τὴν δεῖξιν τῶν ἀκροαμάτων συνελθεῖν καὶ συνεορτάσαι τὰς ἀστυγειτνιώσας πόλεις, cf. Schmitz 1997, 166. 80. Schmitz 1997, 162–­68; cf. Zweimüller 2008, 91; Lauwers 2011, 233. 81. Nesselrath 1998; Whitmarsh 2005, 20; Korenjak 2000, 42–­46. 82. Small audience: Bellinger 1928, 9; Baldwin 1973, 64; Jones 1986, 11–­15, 23. Audience depends on occasion: Ureña Bracero 1995, 203; Camerotto 1998, 265–­74; Von Möllendorff 2000, 9–­10. 83. Pisc. 26: τοὺς ἀρίστους συγκαλῶν, cf. Jones 1986, 14–­15.

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common crowd.”84 It is possible that in the earlier passage Diogenes exaggerates the numbers of those in attendance to underline the gravity of Parrhesiades’ crime of ridiculing the philosophers. Yet, the vocabulary he uses is far from neutral: these words often have a condescending connotation, and should be translated as “the common people,” “the rabble,” or worse.85 Diogenes’ subsequent description of Lucian’s audience as “the best men” cannot be taken at face value; either Diogenes is being ironic in calling the people that attend Parrhesiades’ performances “the best,” or we should take his remark as evidence for a mixed audience—­both the best and the worst were present. Lucian might even be ridiculing Diogenes by making him contradict himself. Arguments for an exclusively elite Lucianic audience have also drawn on Lucian’s Zeuxis. In this piece an unnamed first-­person narrator complains about being praised for the novelty of his compositions, instead of for their quality. The narrator refers to his audience as “friends” and “artistic men,” which has been interpreted as evidence for his real audience.86 Alternatively, it has been suggested that Lucian uses these types of phrases to characterize his intended audience.87 I disagree with both interpretations. These and similar expressions denote what Lucian intends for his real audience to think about themselves, and they are best understood as examples of captatio benevolentiae.88 In Zeuxis the remarks occur in the first and before last sentence of the piece respectively. By calling his audience “friends” at the beginning the narrator ensures a favorable hearing, and by calling them “artists” at the end he angles for a warm applause. These kinds of passages do not prove, then, that Lucian’s audience, real or intended, consisted only of pepaideumenoi, even if many pepaideumenoi probably did attend. Through these captationes benevolentiae non-­elite audience members who might be insecure about their status could feel elevated by being addressed as such, and elite audience members could feel satisfied for being recognized for who they (think they) are.89 In addition to the passage from Fisherman where Diogenes describes Lucian’s audiences as “very numerous” many more passages describe them

84. Pisc. 25, respectively: τὰ πλήθη, πρὸς τῶν πολλῶν, ὁ πολὺς λεώς. 85. See for οἱ πολλοί LSJ II.3b at πολύς; for πλῆθος LSJ I.2b; for λαός LSJ I.1, I.3. 86. Zeux. 1: πρὸς φίλους; Zeux. 12: γραφικοί, cf. Jones 1986, 15. 87. Branham 1989a, 230n53. 88. See also e.g., Salt. 76; Herod. 8; Harm. 4; Pseudol. 5–­6; Dem. 2. Lucian’s approach is comparable to Aristophanes’ captationes benevolentiae in his parabaseis; on these see Imperio 2004, 75–­80. 89. On the intricate dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in second-­century CE sophistic culture see Eshleman 2012, 38–­49, 125–­48.

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as “the many,”90 “the people,”91 or even “all people, now and hereafter.”92 The problem with these passages, although they suggest that Lucian did intend to reach a large audience, is that it is hard to judge their veracity: the author may well be inflating his success to boost his own image. Similarly, vague terms like “the many” or “the people” do not translate into any hard numbers. Passages in which the audience is not monolithic, however, hold out the promise of more helpful information. In Self-­Defense an interlocutor contrasts those who are present at the performance of a Lucianic piece, described as “a great crowd,” with those who read the piece privately afterward, described as “the cultured men.”93 The interlocutor assumes that non-­elite people attend Lucian’s performances; the inclusion of the two categories in one phrase makes it unlikely that this is audience flattery or boasting by the author. Comments on audience in Teacher of Rhetoric paint a similar picture. The piece contains a satirical treatment of the rhetorical culture of Lucian’s day. A first-­person narrator introduces a star orator to teach a young man how to take the easy road to rhetorical success. This unnamed orator tells the student that the audience, consisting of “the numerous crowd,”94 will consider an orator to be above themselves in paideia if he just utters some obscure, Attic-­sounding words. Later on the teacher draws an explicit contrast between two groups in the audience: “the few smart ones” and “the many.”95 Only the former might see through a sham orator, the latter will be dazzled by the performance regardless. In reality the majority of the audience was probably not as easily impressed as the teacher says. Lucian has the narrator exaggerate for purposes of characterization and satire.96 These types of passages support a scenario for public Lucianic performances where the audience would be mixed, consisting of a small contingent of elite pepaideumenoi, perhaps a few dozen, combined with a larger group of non-­elite city-­dwellers, a few hundred, or up to a thousand for an especially popular event.97 This scenario is supported by evidence for mixed audiences at other rhetorical performances.98 90. οἱ πολλοί in e.g., Harm. 4 and Bacch. 5; also τοσούτων μαρτύρων at Pisc. 27 and τοσούτῳ θεάτρῳ at Pisc. 15. 91. τὰ πλήθη in e.g., Prom. es 2. 92. Im. 23.: ἅπασι ( . . . ) τοῖς τε νῦν οὖσι καὶ τοῖς ἐν ὑστέρῳ ἐσομένοις. 93. Apol. 3, respectively: ἐν πολλῷ πλήθει; τοῖς πεπαιδευμένοις. 94. Rh. Pr. 17: ὁ λεὼς ὁ πολύς. 95. Rh. Pr. 20, respectively: οἱ μὲν γὰρ συνιέντες ὀλίγοι . . . οἱ πολλοὶ δέ. Cf. Zweimüller 2008, 326–­27. 96. Pace Korenjak 2000, 54–­55. 97. Cf. Lex. 17 with Zweimüller 2008, 105, and Hist. conscr. 10. 98. Aristid., Or. 34.42; Lib., Or. 25.50; cf. Korenjak 2000, 53; Cribiore 2007, 144–­45. An important parallel for mixed rhetorical audiences is Attic drama, Ar., Pax 50–­53, Ec. 1154–­57; cf. Revermann 2006a, 164–­69 and 2006b, 99–­124, pace Sommerstein 1997, 63–­79.

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Another argument frequently advanced against a mass audience for rhetorical performances was that the venues typically used would not hold more than 500 people,99 but these estimates are too conservative. One particularly well attested performance space is the council hall, or bouleuterion, and the bouleuteria of Aphrodisias and Ephesus respectively held approximately 1,700 and 1,500 people.100 Both cities were important cultural centers in the second century CE, and in the case of Ephesus there is strong evidence that Lucian visited the city, perhaps to perform.101 Theaters and auditoria are also well attested as performance spaces; the former could hold tens of thousands of people, the latter probably no more than a few hundred.102 Though Lucian’s own encomium Hall describes a beautiful auditorium in meticulous detail, unfortunately he does not give any indication of its size. Rhetorical performances could also take place in private homes, bath complexes, basilicas, temples, inns, or simply in the street or in the agora.103 An inscription from Aphrodisias, finally, shows that rhetorical performances could even take place at the stadium, which, in this case, held about 30,000 people: prizes are listed for the winners in competitions in encomia and messenger speeches.104 In the second century CE, then, there would have been many different possible venues for Lucian to perform, both public and private, varying greatly in size. In general there is no reason to think that rhetorical audiences were small because performance spaces were small; on the contrary, this evidence corroborates the variability of rhetorical audiences depending on the occasion, ranging from a mass audience to a small group of friends. Rhetorical events occurred in a school context, on political occasions, or at competitions during a festival. Alternatively, a performance could be the occasion, if an orator organized his own events, possibly touring different cities;105 in Fisherman Lucianic performance is described as “festivity,” marking it as a special occasion.106 While Lucian typically sought large audiences through performances in public spaces, this does not preclude the possibility of him also presenting his work from time to time in semipublic or even more intimate settings, such as a   99. Nesselrath 1998; Whitmarsh 2005, 20; Korenjak 2000, 42–­46. 100. Bouleuterion as performance space: e.g., Aristid., Or. 51.29–­34; cf. Korenjak 2000, 31–­32; Scholz 2017, 159–­60. Bouleuteria at Ephesus and Aphrodisias: Kockel 1995, 35; Bier 1999; 2008, 161–­63. 101. Jones 1986, 65–­67, 111–­12. 102. Korenjak 2000, 28–­31. 103. Korenjak 2000, 32–­33; cf. Eshleman 2012, 25–­26. 104. Roueché 1993 no. 52 = CIG 2758, and no. 53 = CIG 2759 at 168–­74; cf. Welch 1998, 557–­ 58. Similarly at Delphi: Robert 1938, 17–­31; cf. Mitchell 1990, 184. 105. Korenjak 2000, 24–­27. 106. Pisc. 14. On the term ἑορτή see also chapter 2.

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private dinner party. Lucian’s works vary greatly in length. For a performance he would likely have recited one short work, such as one of his introductory speeches, the so-­called prolaliae, and one long work, or multiple short works, like a few exchanges from one set of Dialogues.107 The type of occasion and the expected audience would probably determine the length of the pieces Lucian might choose to perform, as well as their contents. The final question to consider is how much knowledge would have been required of a Lucianic audience to comprehend his language, style, and contents. One aspect of style that could make it difficult for non-­elite audience members to follow a rhetorical performance is Atticism, the tendency of writers in the Second Sophistic to use classical Attic vocabulary, forms, and morphology.108 Lucian has an ambivalent attitude to Atticism. He uses correct Attic throughout, but often deviates from it to avoid obscurity and pedantry, occasionally adopting koine syntax and vocabulary instead, and non-­Attic morphology.109 In Lucian’s works those who were too attached to Atticizing language purism are repeatedly criticized, most notably in Teacher of Rhetoric, Lexiphanes, and Consonants at Law.110 Conversely, the character Lycinus goes to great lengths to defend an Attic usage in Mistaken Critic, and in Solecist mistakes in Attic syntax and vocabulary are ridiculed. Lucian participated in the Atticist trend, while remaining critical of its excesses, and he was unwilling to sacrifice the accessibility of his works to purism.111 In line with this moderate and accessible Atticism, Lucian’s language overall is relatively straightforward. His vocabulary aims at clarity and intelligibility, word order is natural, long sentences are rare, and the sentence structure is typically paratactic rather than periodic.112 This general accessibility notwithstanding, there are still multiple registers within the corpus. On the low end of a spectrum of stylistic difficulty one would place the four sets of Dialogues, 107. Prom. es discussed in section 2 of this chapter is an example of a prolalia; on the form see Branham 1989a, 43; Nesselrath 1990b, 111–­40; Hopkinson 2008, 109–­11; Zweimüller 2008, 67–­70; Baumbach and Von Möllendorff 2017, 119–­24. In chapters 4 and 6 I revisit the topic of performance of multiple pieces on one occasion in the context of intratextuality within Lucian’s corpus. 108. Kim (2017) offers a nuanced overview of the phenomenon and the expansive literature on it. 109. Deferrari 1916; Bompaire 1994, 65–­70; pace Schmid 1887, 216–­432, who viewed Lucian as a model Atticist. 110. See also Dem. 26; Pseudol. 29. I follow Hall (1981, 552–­54) in accepting the authenticity of Iud. Voc.; pace Harmon 1913, 395. 111. On Lucian’s attitude to Atticism see Hall 1981, 279–­309; Jones 1986, 110–­15; Anderson 1993, 90–­93; Swain 1996, 298–­329; 2007, 18–­23; Schmitz 1997, 82; Kim 2010, 478; Whitmarsh 2005, 46–­47; Richter 2011, 146–­47. 112. On Lucian’s prose style see Hopkinson 2008, 6–­7; on DDS and Astr. specifically see Lightfoot 2003, 91–­158. On his avoidance of hyperbaton and chiasmus see Bompaire 1994, 67.

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while pieces like Teacher of Rhetoric, Apology for a Slip in Salutation, and Uncultured Man lean toward the other end. In Dialogues of the Gods clauses and sentences are short, the vocabulary is basic, and the sentence structure is also easily understandable, since there is little subordination. This type of Greek would be accessible (orally) even to those with little to no formal education. In Teacher of Rhetoric, on the other hand, sentences and clauses are long, there are many levels of subordination, and the vocabulary is flowery and obscure, with elaborate metaphors being used. This type of piece would place significantly higher demands on an audience member, and could be hard to follow for someone with limited education. The majority of Lucian’s works is closer in style to the Dialogues of the Gods than to Teacher of Rhetoric. The fact that the latter is difficult in style is likely related to its subject matter: there is a clear incentive to use stylistic fireworks in a piece about the excesses of second-­century CE rhetoric. Also, it is not surprising that texts like Mistaken Critic and Apology for a Slip in Salutation are stylistically involved, since they take language as their subject. Lucian may have written these kinds of pieces for a slightly different audience than the audience of the sets of Dialogues, but he could also be appealing, more so than in other works, to the educated segment of his audience. Other audience members could still enjoy much of the comedy of these more difficult pieces without understanding every little detail. Lucian increases the liveliness of his speeches and dialogues through the use of deixis, or “pointing words.”113 In literary speech, as opposed to everyday speech, the relationship between the deictic and the referent is imaginary: the context to which the deictics point, the literary world in which the story is set, is absent when the text is consumed; both performer and audience find themselves in the context of a theater or bouleuterion instead. This tension makes deixis very productive in literary performance: referring to something that is absent as if it were present produces a jarring effect, thereby grabbing the attention of the audience.114 The effect of using deixis is on clear display in Diogenes’ accusation of Parrhesiades in Fisherman: “He abuses in a loud voice Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle here (touton), and Chrysippus over there (ekeinon), and myself, in a word, 113. In classical scholarship the study of deixis has been focused on Greek archaic lyric and epic poetry, Bakker 1999a, 1–­19; 1999b, 50–­65; 2005, 154–­76; Edmunds 2012; Felson 2004. Bellinger (1928) does not discuss it, presumably because his work predates the publication of Bühler’s (1934) theory of deixis. 114. Pernot (2015, 57–­58) with respect to oratory points to a similar effect for apostrophe, which is one form of deixis. Favreau-­Linder (2009, 434) suggests, commenting on Tyr. 19, that in his speeches Lucian may have emphasized deictic words with gestures.

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everyone” (Pisc. 26, see n52 for the Greek). Lucian uses the deictic pronouns to help the audience imagine Diogenes in a courtroom setting, pointing out his fellow prosecutors Aristotle and Chrysippus in the audience from the stand; by shifting from touton to ekeinos the audience’s gaze into the imaginary courtroom is made to move through the rows where the philosophers are sitting. Lucian uses deictic demonstratives as often in the speeches as in the dialogues; given their particular effectiveness in live performance this may further corroborate that he wrote his dialogues for performance as much as his speeches.115 Another piece of evidence are discussions of prose style within Lucian’s own works: while such comments are not automatically to be read as programmatic, there is a striking convergence between the thoughtful reflections on accessible style offered by Lucianic interlocutors and how Lucian himself writes. In Double Indictment no fewer than three characters comment on the simple style of The Syrian’s dialogues. Oratory describes it as “small questioning clauses,”116 Dialogue calls it “in the same way as the many,”117 and The Syrian says he made Dialogue “walk on the ground in the human manner.”118 In On Writing History the narrator explains why accessible style is important in historiography: Thus also for his [the historian’s] language this should be the first and only aim, to explain the matter clearly and expound it as lucidly as possible, not with unusual or out of the way words, nor with the vulgar language of the merchants, so that the many may understand, and the cultured men praise him. . . . Let his diction walk firmly on the ground. . . . It is better when his mind is on horseback, for his exposition to run along on foot, holding onto the saddle-­cloth, in order not to be left behind. And in putting words together a controlled moderation should be used, without excessive separation or detachment  .  .  . since this is unpleasant to the audience.119 115. In the dialogues 2.1 percent of words are demonstratives, in the speeches 2.0 percent; this compares to 1.3 percent, more than one standard deviation lower, for the VH, which in its current form was intended for a reading audience, Georgiadou and Larmour 1998a, 51–­59; cf. Von Möllendorff 2000, 10n22. Deixis is also common in ancient (and modern) texts intended for reading, serving to mimic spoken language (cf. Edmunds 2008, 82–­88), but Lucian seemingly was more inclined to use deixis in texts he intended primarily for performance. 116. Bis acc. 28: εἰς μικρὰ δὲ καὶ κομματικὰ ἐρωτήματα. 117. Bis acc. 33: ἰσοδίαιτον τοῖς πολλοῖς. 118. Bis acc. 34: ἐπὶ γῆς βαίνειν . . . εἰς τὸν ἀνθρώπινον τοῦτον τρόπον. Cf. Electr. 6. 119. Hist. conscr. 44–­46: οὕτω δὲ καὶ τῇ φωνῇ αὐτοῦ εἷς σκοπὸς ὁ πρῶτος, σαφῶς δηλῶσαι καὶ φανότατα ἐμφανίσαι τὸ πρᾶγμα, μήτε ἀπορρήτοις καὶ ἔξω πάτου ὀνόμασι μήτε τοῖς ἀγοραίοις τούτοις καὶ καπηλικοῖς, ἀλλ’ ὡς μὲν τοὺς πολλοὺς συνεῖναι, τοὺς δὲ πεπαιδευμένους ἐπαινέσαι. . . . ἡ λέξις δὲ ὅμως ἐπὶ γῆς βεβηκέτω . . . ἄμεινον οὖν ἐφ’ ἵππου ὀχουμένῃ τότε τῇ γνώμῃ τὴν ἑρμηνείαν πεζῇ συμπαραθεῖν, ἐχομένην τοῦ ἐφιππίου ὡς μὴ ἀπολείποιτο τῆς φορᾶς. καὶ μὴν καὶ συνθήκῃ τῶν

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Clarity, standard vocabulary, and avoiding hyperbaton allow prose to be understood by “the many,” while “the cultured” will praise it. This consideration for different segments of the audience fits well with the indications for a mixed Lucianic audience from Fisherman and Self-­Defense. The mention in the second half of the passage of diction being “on foot” and “on the ground” echoes the description of The Syrian’s style from Double Indictment.120 Lucian’s own style sufficiently matches these precepts for us to conclude that he consciously chose it in order to appeal to a broad audience. Last, there is the issue of how much cultural knowledge would be required to understand the abundant references to myth and history in Lucian’s performances. The effect of a mythical reference in Lucian rarely depends on audiences remembering in detail how other authors tell specific myths. He appeals, rather, to the lowest common denominator of acquaintance with myth and history, allowing everyone to feel included.121 In his oeuvre Lucian frequently uses the same myths, typically famous ones such as the Phaëthon story, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite, or Prometheus wrapping the thighbones in fat for Zeus.122 The relatively low degree of familiarity with the myths from archaic epic required by Lucianic performance could well be achieved without literacy through visual art, theatrical performances, iconography on coins, and oral traditions. When Lucian does include a reference that would demand a more sophisticated education, such as Oratory’s garbled Demosthenes quotes in Double Indictment, there still is enough to be enjoyed in the remainder of the piece so as not to render it inaccessible to less educated audience members. Treatments of myth typically explain all the necessary details to the audience within the passage. Lucian allows everyone in attendance to participate, and even shows himself as an educator of his listeners.123

Conclusion Lucian’s performances made meaning by provoking interactions between the author-­performer, the many featured personae and interlocutors, and the audiὀνομάτων εὐκράτῳ καὶ μέσῃ χρηστέον, οὔτε ἄγαν ἀφιστάντα καὶ ἀπαρτῶντα . . . τὸ δὲ ἀηδὲς τοῖς ἀκούουσι. 120. The expression “on foot” is typically used to describe prose as opposed to poetry (LSJ s.v. πεζός III.3), but here it seems to refer more generally to a straightforward style. 121. Schmitz 1997, 165–­69, 171–­75; cf. Branham 1989a, 144–­45; Nesselrath 1998; Anderson 2003. 122. Phaëthon: e.g., Electr., D. Deor. 24, Astr. 19, and Salt. 55. Ares and Aphrodite: e.g., D. Deor. 17, 21, 23, Salt. 63, Nec. 3, and Gall. 3. Prometheus: e.g., Prom. 3, 7–­10, Prom. es 7, and D. Deor. 5. 123. Particularly good examples of this are Prom. es, Electr., and D. Deor. 2.

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ences in attendance. The scholiasts were at a loss where to locate the author in his texts. Yet, the ambiguity about the presence or absence of the author behind the speaking masks as well as the diversity of voices and viewpoints served to activate and engage the listeners. Humor in these texts is created by speakers and interlocutors, but also at their expense. Lucian meant to confuse and to entertain, but there is something at stake in this game. The dynamic fights between Lucianic interlocutors, or between first-­person speakers and their satirizing creator are made to fit a plot which aims to show the audience the world they live in for what it is. Lucian’s philosophy by other means may not offer ready-­made solutions or an alternative vision, but this does not render it void. In most things, but especially in making claims about the gods there is value in correcting the mistakes of others. The primary medium for both Lucian’s speeches and his dialogues was performance in front of a live audience that was not, as has been previously assumed, exclusively elite, but consisted of people from all strata of the urban population. Lucian purposefully engaged this mixed audience through his choice of style, language, and themes, and addressed the experience of those lacking wealth and power in his performances because they were right there. His works are testimony of and give us insight into intellectual life in the Roman city. Philosophical discourse about the gods permeated elite private homes, the inscribed streetscape (as evident in Diogenes of Oenoanda’s inscription) and popular, rhetorical performances.124 Lucian addresses similar questions as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, or Maximus of Tyre, but he also shares motifs with the fable and standard jokes. Intellectual inquiry did not require literacy, and Lucianic performance allows us to appreciate fully the continuity between the different realms—­“high” and “low,” literate and oral—­of the pursuit of knowledge in the second century CE. The scholiasts’ second question of what it meant for Lucian and his contemporaries to laugh at their gods is the topic of the next chapter. In order to answer it we will need to consider the ancient philosophical debate on how the gods should be represented set off by the Homeric laughter-­loving gods and culminating in Lucian’s Fisherman. His cast of divine comic characters operates in a much larger framework of laughter and religion colluding and colliding—­ even if Lucian stuffed it all into a one-­man show.

124. Pace Scholz (2017, 170–­75), who interprets the Diogenes of Oenoanda inscription as engaging only with the elite; its public location meant that most everyone would know about the text and its contents, whether by reading it in person, hearing it read out, or from hearsay. See Gordon (1996, 54–­65) on Diogenes’ text as a popular work. On the inscription see chapters 2 and 5.

CHAPTER 2 ❦

Laughter-­Loving Gods Anthropomorphism, Imitation, and Morality

“The final phase of a world-­historical form is its comedy. The Greek gods, already once mortally wounded, tragically, in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, had to die once more, comically, in the dialogues of Lucian.”1 For Karl Marx Lucian’s comedy sounded the death knell for the ancient gods. Albin Lesky agreed. He describes Lucian’s world as follows: “The traditional gods are done and dead. Every kind of fun with them is allowed.”2 Lesky contrasts Lucian’s treatment of the gods with humorous depictions of them in Aristophanes and Homer: Aristophanes evinces the proximity of fifth-­century BCE Athenians to their still powerful gods, while in Homer the gods are distant and awe-­ inspiring, even if their frivolity prefigures the critical stance of the Ionian pre-­ Socratics.3 As I sketched in the Introduction, Lesky’s chronology depends on the now overturned historical model of polytheism’s decline during the first and second centuries CE—­in Lucian as much as in Homer or Aristophanes it is clearly the case that the gods survived the fun that was had with them. This notwithstanding, for both Lesky and Marx laughter has at least the potential to kill the gods, that is, to undermine human investment in divinities to such an extent as to render their cult defunct. In this book I start from the opposite premise, namely that laughter and humor within the context of ancient religion were generally not desacralizing. Aside from the evidence about the persistent vitality of ancient religion, my approach is rooted in the contributions of philosophers and other ancient commentators to the question. How did the ancients think laughing at, with, or for their gods would affect 1. Marx 1994 [1844], 61. Cf. Branham 1989a, 128; Halliwell 2017, 47. 2. Lesky 1961, 33. 3. Lesky 1961, 33–­40. Recent reconciliations of Aristophanes’ depiction of the gods with religiosity are Parker 2005; Revermann 2014; Chepel 2020; contra Scullion 2014; Whitmarsh 2015, 99–­102. On the gods in Homer see Introduction and chapter 4.

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humans? And how, in turn, did people imagine the gods’ response to human laughter at them, or representations of them on stage, in poetry, and in visual arts? In the first section of this chapter I consider the scope of laughter at the gods in ancient sources, what causes it, and what the consequences can be. In the second section I focus on how laughter was incorporated in religious rituals in ancient Greece and all the way up to Lucian’s time. These rituals were often linked to mythical moments of divine laughter, to turn ritual human laughter for the gods into an imitation and echo of the blessed laughter of the gods. The intersection of imagining the gods as laughter-­lovers and the ability to laugh at the gods in the context of literature sparked a centuries-­long debate, to which Lucian responded both directly and indirectly; the third section examines this debate. In the final section I turn to the issue that defines the gods’ relation to laughter: their anthropomorphism. I discuss Dio’s Olympian Oration as an example of the incorporation of the gods’ humanness into imperial philosophical theology. For Lucian’s audiences laughing at comic representations of the gods was not antithetical to worshipping them. The reasons why this was so reach back through centuries of Greek religious culture and thought.

Shades of Divine Laughter As Stephen Halliwell has brilliantly shown, laughter in the ancient Greek world was understood to be a Janus-­faced phenomenon: ranging from a joyful, energetic, necessary feature of human existence to a dangerous expression of violent aggression.4 Laughter, and this is still true today, can make humans connect or drive a wedge between them. There are innumerable factors determining what the effect of any given moment of laughter will be, but it seems universally true that how laughter is received is pivotal to how the relation between the parties involved develops afterward. These complex dynamics extend to interactions with fictional or representational characters as well. When a comedic character laughs, or appears to do so, at the intended audience, they might react with hilarity or hostility, become lifelong fans or walk away. Conversely, when you laugh at or with a fictional character this can affect your attitude toward them positively or negatively. What is remarkable about ancient Greece is that the role of laughter in relationships between humans mapped on to its role in relationships between gods and humans quite closely, meaning that such laughter too could be considered hostile or amicable, joyful or disastrous, and everything in between. 4. Halliwell 2008, 1–­50.

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In Tragic Zeus the father of the gods reports to the divine assembly that he is worried about the influence of the philosophers, especially the Epicureans. Zeus fears that their ideas might convince humans that they should not give the gods sacrifices anymore.5 Momus, god of blame, pins the blame for philosophical critiques of divine providence on the gods themselves: For whenever they hear from the rhapsodes that we love and are wounded and are shackled and enslaved and fight and have thousands such troubles, and still we think we are blessed and immortal, what else should humans do than laugh at us, deservedly, and think we are of no account?6 Momus’ summary of what the rhapsodes sing is reminiscent of Xenophanes’ critique of the Homeric gods, which we turn to in detail in section 3 below.7 He tells the other gods that their claim to a blessed, eternal existence is a source of laughter to humans because it appears to be irreconcilable with how the gods are depicted in epic poetry. Momus makes it clear that this laughter is scornful and dismissive by adding that such humans would also consider the gods worthless. In the context of Tragic Zeus the other gods seem not to care about this laughter. Zeus shuts Momus up, chastising him for being too critical (I. trag. 23). He and his compatriots are much more worried about the potential loss of sacrifices than the loss of esteem. Nonetheless, Momus’ strategy assumes that the gods might dislike being laughed at, this is why he brings it up, and that human laughter at the gods might stem from and indicate disdain. Our second case of (anticipated) laughter at the gods is a first-­or second-­ century CE bronze tablet from Asia Minor. The anonymous individual who dedicated it vows all the golden items that they have lost to the Mother of the Gods, “in order that she [the goddess] will investigate and reveal everything, and in order that those who possess them will be punished in a manner worthy of her power, so that she will not be laughable.”8 Like Momus, the dedicator of this inscription assumes that the goddess would rather not incur laughter on account of failing to punish the thieves who stole the gold. The prospect 5. On I. trag. see also chapters 3 and 5. 6. I. trag. 20: ὅταν μὲν γὰρ τῶν ῥαψῳδῶν ἀκούωσιν, ὅτι καὶ ἐρῶμεν καὶ τιτρωσκόμεθα καὶ δεσμούμεθα καὶ δουλεύομεν καὶ στασιάζομεν καὶ μυρία ὅσα πράγματα ἔχομεν, καὶ ταῦτα μακάριοι καὶ ἄφθαρτοι ἀξιοῦντες εἶναι, τί ἄλλο ἢ δικαίως καταγελῶσι καὶ ἐν οὐδενὶ λόγῳ τίθενται τὰ ἡμέτερα; 7. Similar phrases, but without the mention of laughter, occur at I. conf. 8; Nec. 3; cf. Coenen 1977, 78. 8. SEG 28.1568: ἀνατίθημι Μητρὶ θεῶν χρυσᾶ ἀπ πάντα ὥστε ἀναζητῆσι αὐτὴν καὶ ἐς μέσον ἐνεκκεῖν πάντα καὶ τοὺς ἔχοντες κολάσεσθαι ἀξίως τῆς αὐτῆς δυνάμες καὶ μήτε αὐτὴν καταγέλαστον ἔσεσθ[αι]. Cf. Dunant 1978; Gager 1992, 190–­91; Chaniotis 2004, 14–­15.

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of human scorn is mentioned, it seems, to motivate the goddess in her task as enforcer of justice. In this case, too, the human laughter at the gods is hostile and dismissive, but the possibility of retaliation from the goddess for this laughter, should it occur, is not considered.9 For our third example I turn to Plutarch’s treatise On Superstition, which compares atheism favorably to “superstition” (deisidaimonia) for a host of reasons, including the fact that those who fear the gods have erroneous, slanderous opinions about them.10 Plutarch makes a bold comparison, saying that he would prefer people said about him that he does not exist over being called “unstable and fickle, quick-­tempered, vindictive over little accidents, and easily offended.”11 He continues to humorously transpose alleged divine punishments for minor infractions—­“if you do not have time to visit him or talk to him, he grabs your body and bites it”12—­to the human plane. According to Plutarch only the deisidaimones, people suffering from deisidaimonia, would believe the story about Leto’s famed, cruel punishment of Niobe for boasting about her offspring, which brings him to a complex counterfactual: For if truly the goddess had anger and was hating wretchedness, and if she was really pained to be spoken ill of and did not laugh at human foolishness and ignorance, but instead found it irritating, she would have to shoot those who falsely accuse her of such savagery and harshness and who say and write such things.13 Plutarch argues that because people can mention Leto’s cruelty seemingly with impunity this must mean that she is not angered by such stories but rather “laughs” at them. The complication is that, presumably, if the stories were true,   9. One of the iamata from Epidaurus records a case of laughter not directly at a god but at his deeds: Asclepius healed a woman, in spite of her “laughing at some of the god’s cures for being impossible and incredible” (τῶν ἰαμάτων τινὰ διεγέλα ὡς ἀπίθανα καὶ ἀδύνατα ἐόντα), but she had to dedicate a silver pig “to commemorate her ignorance” (ὑπόμναμα τᾶς ἀμαθίας), Herzog 1931, no. 4; cf. Dillon 1994; Petrovic and Petrovic 2016, 51. 10. On the terms deisidaimonia and atheotēs in Plu., De Superst. see Kuin 2020a. 11. Plu., De Superst. 170A: ἄνθρωπος ἀβέβαιος εὐμετάβολος, εὐχερὴς πρὸς ὀργήν, ἐπὶ τοῖς τυχοῦσι τιμωρητικός, μικρόλυπος. Texts for Plutarch’s Moralia are from the Loeb Classical Library throughout. 12. Plu., De Superst. 170A: ἂν ἀσχολίας σοι γενομένης ἐπὶ θύρας μὴ ἔλθῃς ἢ μὴ προσείπῃς, διέδεταί σου τὸ σῶμα προσφύς. 13. Plu., De Superst. 170C: εἰ γὰρ ἀληθῶς ἡ θεὸς χολὴν εἶχε καὶ μισοπόνηρος ἦν καὶ ἤλγει κακῶς ἀκούουσα καὶ μὴ κατεγέλα τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἀμαθίας καὶ ἀγνοίας ἀλλ᾿ ἠγανάκτει, τούτους ἔδει τοξεῦσαι τοὺς τοσαύτην ὠμότητα καὶ πικρίαν καταψευδομένους αὐτῆς καὶ τοιαῦτα λέγοντας καὶ γράφοντας.

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the people telling them would not be accusing the goddess “falsely” in the first place. Plutarch, however, does not allow for this possibility, and he clearly assumes that Leto shrugs off the silly lies told by the deisidaimones. Leto’s laughter as imagined by Plutarch is dismissive yet conciliatory; he presents it as an alternative to aggression. Laughter plays a similar role in his description of the atheist’s response to religious festivals. On these occasions “the atheist laughs a crazy and sardonic laugh,” but, Plutarch adds “he does no other harm”—­in sharp contrast to the deisidaimōn, whose behavior has many undesirable consequences.14 On Superstition features dismissive but harmless laughter concerning religion going in two different directions: from a goddess toward humans on account of the way they depict her, and from a human toward the rituals performed for the gods. Plutarch portrays this laughter as a conciliatory alternative to violence. The fourth and final instance of laughter also involves Leto and comes from Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, which preserves the story of a rich man named Parmeniscus. He traveled to the oracle of Delphi because he was no longer able to laugh, and wanted to be cured. The Pythia answers that “his mother at home” will give him back the ability to laugh, and that he must honor her greatly. Parmeniscus understands the oracle to mean that he should go back to his home country, but this fails to bring about a cure, and he thinks Apollo has deceived him. When he finds himself on Delos a while later, he visits the temple of Leto, Apollo’s mother. Parmeniscus expects an impressive statue inside, but upon entering sees only an ugly piece of wood and bursts out laughing “unexpectedly” (paradoxōs). He realizes that he can laugh again, finally grasps the oracle, and rewards the goddess amply.15 In the Parmeniscus story men and gods view laughter as a necessity of life, and the inability to laugh as an affliction. Apollo brings the cure about by creating the conditions for an outburst of laughter caused by incongruity: what Parmeniscus saw was so different from what he expected to see that he had to laugh. The meaning of his laughter is ambivalent. Parmeniscus laughs at the unexpected ugliness of Leto’s cult statue, which suggests dismissiveness, yet the outburst has been engineered by Leto’s son. The laughter is perceived as desirable by both humans and gods, and Leto receives large offerings as a result of 14. Plu., De Superst. 169D: τὸν ἄθεον γελῶντα μὲν μανικὸν καὶ σαρδάνιον γέλωτα . . . ἄλλο δ᾿ οὐδὲν ἔχοντα κακόν. 15. Semus of Delos is cited as the source, Ath. 14.2 = BNJ 396 F 10. Parmeniscus lost his ability to laugh after visiting the underground shrine of Trophonius, on which see chapter 6. See Bertelli (2009) for a discussion of the epigraphic evidence probably connected to the story.

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it. The Pythia’s oracle may have mandated this gift, yet Parmeniscus also clearly reveres the goddess more, not less, because she let him laugh again.16 Our four examples show a broad range of human laughter at the gods. It can be an expression of contempt for their apparent weakness or a laughing fit at a funny looking statue. Parmeniscus’ story shows laughter that is fully appropriate to a sacred space. The question also arises of whether there is a meaningful difference between laughing at the gods themselves and laughing at representations of them. In Athenaeus the answer is diffuse: according to the Pythia Apollo’s mother will give back to Parmeniscus the ability to laugh, but her statue is what brings this laughter about. As so often in Greek religion—­and Lucian took a keen interest in this problem—­the goddess is and is not her statue at the same time.17 Leto’s agency does reside in the statue, but she is much more awesome than this ugly piece of wood, as Parmeniscus acknowledges through his honorific gifts. In contrast to the divinely engineered laughter of Parmeniscus at Leto, the other examples do present human laughter as something gods would be grieved by and would want to avoid, but adverse consequences for human laughers are not considered in these cases either. The one instance of a divinity laughing at humans, from Plutarch, is equally harmless; it is imagined as an expression of Leto’s contempt, yet it allows for violence to be avoided. The ritual laughter to which we now turn is akin to the Parmeniscus story in that it was seen as appropriate to sacred spaces and events, and, going even further, was part of time-­honored traditions.

Ritual and Ridicule Religious festivals in antiquity were highly scripted and ritualized affairs, constituting important moments of communication with the gods. But a festival was also an occasion for conviviality, providing the opportunity to drink, to mingle with friends, to eat nice food, and to have some fun. Many texts suggest that for the ancients there was an inherent connection between religious festival and playfulness. “You make libations and laugh,” says the chorus in Aristophanes’ Clouds about people making sacrifice,18 and in Herodotus the word “to 16. On the significance of the religious gaze and aniconism in the Parmeniscus episode see Kindt 2010; 2012, 36–­54; as an example of laughter at failed imitation, Beard 2014, 174–­76. 17. On this issue see e.g., Scheer 2000, 35–­130; Parker 2011, xi–­xii, 185–­86; Squire 2011, 154–­ 201; Platt 2011, 77–­123; Gaifman 2016. In Lucian see e.g., I. trag. 7–­12, with Romm 1990, 76–­ 82. On the interaction between human imagination and ancient divine images see Mylonopoulos 2010; 2015. See also section 4 in this chapter. 18. Ar., Nu. 623: σπένδεθ᾽ ὑμεῖς καὶ γελᾶτ’.

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play” (paizein) is used of those celebrating a festival.19 A common Greek term for religious festival, heortē, can describe laughter and play within or outside a religious context.20 The general symbiosis between ritual and playfulness found its fullest expression in the many examples we have in antiquity of ritual laughter. I use this term to describe ancient rites of which joking and laughter were necessary components rather than incidental features, and I focus on ritual laughter for Demeter and Dionysus, which were its best-­known iterations. The mysteries at Eleusis were celebrated annually in Attica for the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Several instances of ritual laughter for Demeter are attested at Eleusis, and at two other festivals, the Haloa and the Thesmophoria. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter contains an aetiology for the ritual laughter for the goddess at Eleusis: Unsmiling, partaking neither of food nor drink She sat, wasting away with longing for her deep-­girt daughter, Until at last true-­hearted Iambe with ribaldry Made many jokes about her and convinced the divine lady To smile and to laugh and to have a cheerful heart; She [Iambe] also later on pleased her [Demeter] with her spirits.21 Demeter has been roaming the earth looking for her daughter, and mourning. Her refusal to laugh is linked to her refusal of food and drink, and all three are understood as vital sustenance.22 Celeus’ family at Eleusis has taken Demeter in, disguised as an old woman. Iambe lifts Demeter’s sadness with jokes—­probably involving indecency—­that targeted the goddess herself.23 An alternative version of the Iambe story has the servant woman, now named Baubo, expose herself to make Demeter laugh.24 In both scenarios Demeter’s likely reaction would have been to get angry at Iambe or Baubo for mocking 19. Hdt. 9.11. On the connection between “play” and religious festival in ancient Greece see Kidd 2019, 79–­80; for a comparative, evolutionary perspective see Morley 2018. 20. E.g., Pl., Lg. 657D–­E; Demetr., Eloc. 170. On heortē see Mikalson 1982; cf. Halliwell 2008, 157, 203. On heortē in Lucian see also section 3 below. 21. h. Cer. 200–­205: ἀλλ᾽ ἀγέλαστος ἄπαστος ἐδητύος ἠδὲ ποτῆτος / ἧστο πόθῳ μινύθουσα βαθυζώνοιο θυγατρός, / πρίν γ᾽ ὅτε δὴ χλεύῃς μιν Ἰάμβη κέδν᾽ εἰδυῖα / πολλὰ παρασκώπτουσ᾽ ἐτρέψατο πότνιαν ἁγνήν / μειδῆσαι γελάσαι τε καὶ ἵλαον σχεῖν θυμόν· / ἣ δή οἱ καὶ ἔπειτα μεθύστερον εὔαδεν ὀργαῖς. 22. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 161–­64. 23. At h. Cer. 203 Demeter is direct object of παρασκώπτουσα; σκώπτω with direct object means mocking someone (LSJ), cf. Rosen 2007, 53–­55. Indecent content of jokes: Richardson 1974, 222; cf. Foley 1994, 230. 24. Clem. Al., Protr. 2.20.2–­21.2; Arn., Adv. Nat. 5.25–­26; Orph. Fr. 52 Kern. See Olender (1990, 83–­113) on Baubo in broader perspective.

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her. Instead, the unexpectedness of the woman’s behavior causes Demeter to laugh. Just as in the example of Leto in Plutarch, divine laughter substitutes and thereby preempts violence. In the Eleusinian mystery cult initiates were made fun of by bystanders, ridiculed one another, or hurled jokes and insults at bystanders at several moments leading up to the celebration of the secret rites. Aischrologia, from “shameful” (aischros) and “speech” (logos), was used to describe these practices, as well as gephyrismos, from the word for bridge (gephyra), since initiates were insulted on the bridge over the Cephisus river near Eleusis.25 At the women-­only festivals Thesmophoria and Haloa worshippers of Demeter participated in aischrologia, by handling terracotta objects and pastries imitating genitals and using obscene language to make each other laugh.26 Ancient observers assumed that practitioners offered ritual laughter to Demeter in commemoration and imitation of the goddess’ own laughter at the obscenities of Iambe or Baubo. In Hymn to Demeter the story of Iambe ends with an emphatic allusion to later reiterations of aischrologia for Demeter.27 Diodorus writes that in Sicily, during the Thesmophoria, worshippers “engage in aischrologia toward one another because thanks to aischrologia the goddess laughed when she was grieved at the rape of Persephone”; pseudo-­Apollodorus offers the same explanation.28 These texts make explicit something that would be implicit to participants in the laughter rituals for Demeter: the goddess delights in the laughter of men and women, because she herself had experienced its benefits. The structure and aetiology of ritual laughter for Demeter illustrates how in ancient Greek religion the gods could be thought of as enjoying human laughter because they liked to laugh themselves. The fact that play, comedy, and laughter were traditionally embedded in religion supports a scenario in which Lucian’s audiences could laugh at comic representations of the gods while remaining 25. Ar., V. 1361–­65; Call., Aet. F 21 Harder; for gephyrismos see Suda, s.v. γεφυρίζων; Str. 9.1.24; Hsch., s.v. γεφυρισταί. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 161–­72, 208–­14; Bremmer 2014, 7; Cosmopoulos 2016, 19. 26. Aischrologia at Thesmophoria: Ar., Th. 289–­91, 643–­48, 962–­65; Theodoret., GAC 3.84; Cleom. 2.1.499–500; cf. McClure 1999, 230–­31; Tzanetou 2002, 335–­39. Aischrologia for Demeter generally: O’Higgins 2001, 137–­60; 2003, 17–­30; Parker 2005, 270–­89; Halliwell 2008, 172–­77; Bremmer [2005] 2008, 264–­65; Pierre 2008, 90–­92; Stallsmith 2009, 28–­45; Larson 2014, 214–­15; Cosmopoulos 2016, 12–­14. 27. ὀργαί at h. Cer. 205 seems at least an allusion to the ὄργια, “secret rites” at Eleusis; contra Richardson 1974, 223. 28. D.S. 5.4.7: ἔθος δ᾽ ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἐν ταύταις ταῖς ἡμέραις αἰσχρολογεῖν κατὰ τὰς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁμιλίας διὰ τὸ τὴν θεὸν ἐπὶ τῇ τῆς Κόρης ἁρπαγῇ λυπουμένην γελάσαι διὰ τὴν αἰσχρολογίαν. Text from Oldfather 1939. Cf. Apollod. 1.5.1. The Iambe/Baubo story was associated with aischrologia both at Eleusis and at the Thesmophoria and Haloa, cf. Clinton 1992, 28–­37; O’Higgins 2003, 37–­45.

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invested in their worship. For the sake of this argument Lucian’s contemporaries need not themselves have participated in ritual laughter, but it is possible that they did. The mysteries at Eleusis were still celebrated as late as the fifth century CE, and Lucian mentions them several times.29 The author does not specifically discuss aischrologia for Demeter, yet we still owe most of our evidence for it to his Dialogues of the Hetaerae. In this work sex workers mention participating in the Haloa and Thesmophoria, and these passages prompted lengthy comments on the aischrological elements in both festivals in Arethas’ scholia.30 In the Letters of the Hetaerae by Lucian’s contemporary Alciphron, a prostitute named Thais also attends the Haloa.31 This raises the question of whether the festival was connected with sex workers because of its obscene, aischrological elements, or the other way around. Lucian, in any case, associated the Thesmophoria and Haloa with female sexuality, and expected his audience to do the same. Laughing in honor of the gods used to be considered such an outlandish phenomenon, that scholars refused to accept it as historical.32 But, in recent decades laughter rituals have been acknowledged as a feature of ancient religion, and have received some attention. Most notable is Halliwell’s catalogue of the available evidence.33 Attempts to explain this phenomenon have focused, respectively, on an apotropaic function,34 on the notion of “fertility magic”—­practitioners, it is argued, believed that obscenities would activate fertility35—­or on the communal benefits of “the bodily energies and psychological release of laughter,” following a Bakhtinian model.36 Apotropaic explanations, however, fail to account 29. Lex. 10; Dem. 11; Cat. 22. There is no evidence to suggest that in the imperial period aischrologia was omitted, but the possibility cannot be excluded; on imperial Eleusis see: Alderink 1989, 1457–­89; Clinton 1989, 1499–­1539; Robertson 1998, 547–­51. 30. Σ on D. meretr. 2.1, 7.4 in Rabe 1971 [1906], 275–­76, 279–­81. The scholia may derive from a third-­century CE source, or even earlier, cf. Lowe 1998. At Ar., Th. 293–­94 slaves are excluded from the Thesmophoria, while at Call., Aet. F 63 Harder only married women can celebrate; Lucian’s inclusion of hetaerae in the festival could be a literary joke, or it could reflect second-­century CE realities. On the Thesmophoria in the imperial period see Spaeth 1996, 12–­13, 107–­13; Orlin 2010, 105–­9. 31. Alciphr. 4.6; cf. Granholm 2012, 160–­62. Alciphron may allude to ps.-D. 59.116; cf. Parker 2005, 283. 32. E.g., Ridgeway 1915, 404 (on gephyrismos); cf. Deubner 1966 [1932], 73–­74. 33. Halliwell 2008, 160–­91. One possible piece of evidence not included by Halliwell is Bis acc. 10, where Pan says he enjoys “the laughter and play” (ὁ γέλως αὐτῶν καὶ ἡ παιδιά) of his worshippers in Athens. This could be connected to h. Pan 37, where the god is called “sweet-­laughing” (ἡδυγέλως), and, generally, to his association with satyrs. 34. Plu., De Defect. 417C; cf. Fluck 1931, 29–­33, 49–­50; contra Halliwell 2008, 199–­201. On the Plutarch passage see further section 3 below. 35. Parker 2011, 208–­9; contra Lowe 1998, 154–­55; Halliwell 2008, 196–­99. 36. Halliwell 2008, 206; cf. Bakhtin 1984 [1965], 5–­12, 196–­207. Kamen (2020, 34) acknowledges that mockery was performed “at least in part to please the gods,” but focuses on the societal benefits.

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for the laughter accompanying aischrologia, and only some ritual laughter was connected to fertility. None of these explanations truly engage with the connection between divine laughter and human laughter. Yet, in antiquity these laughter rituals were understood as imitations of divine laughter, or as devoted to gods who like to hear laughter. Demeter’s outburst in Hymn to Demeter is reminiscent of what Catherine Conybeare has called “the laughter of delight,” based on the laughter of the biblical Sarah when her son Isaac is born.37 Under the most unlikely of circumstances Iambe makes Demeter laugh, like Sarah, in spite of herself; the bodily experience of laughter lifts her sadness. The ritual laughter commemorating Demeter’s laugh of delight is scripted and therefore lacks the element of surprise, but it still allows practitioners to enjoy the benefits of laughter by following divine example, and it affirms the ties between gods and humans. Humans can share in the gods’ laughter by echoing and reechoing it. Halliwell’s catalogue treats very many Greek divinities for whom laughter rituals are attested. I will here complement the paradigmatic case of Demeter with a discussion of ritual laughter for Dionysus, because this had Lucian’s particular interest, and two Roman laughter rituals, the carmina triumphalia and the Saturnalia, which his audience would certainly have known. For Demeter the combination of epic aetiology and well-­attested practices provides a particularly strong connection between divine and human laughter. In the case of Dionysus the same elements are present—­laughter performed as part of ritual, and references to the god’s own laughter—­but the evidence does not fit together as neatly. Nonetheless, when we put several types of sources side by side it emerges that ancient audiences did perceive a connection between ritual laughter performed for Dionysus, inside and outside the theater, and his laughter-­loving character. During the Lenaia and Anthesteria festivals for Dionysus in Athens celebrants rode on wagons in a procession. The worshippers, in an inversion of the gephyrismos at Eleusis, directed comic insults at bystanders from the wagons.38 This practice was so well known that “from the wagons” or even just “wagons” were proverbial expressions meaning “verbal abuse.” The usage may have become common in the time of Lucian, who took a special interest both in the ritual and in the phrase. It occurs no fewer than three times in 37. Conybeare 2013, 54–­67. 38. Pl., Lg. 637A; D.H. 7.72.11; Suda, s.v. ἐξ ἁμάξης τ1530 (Lenaia); Suda, s.v. τὰ ἐκ τῶν ἁμαξῶν σκώμματα τ19 (Lenaia and Anthesteria, specifically Choes); cf. Fluck 1931, 34–­51; Halliwell 2008, 177–­83; Bremmer 2008, 263–­64.

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his corpus.39 In one example, Zeus says that the (fictive) Epicurean philosopher Damis “spares no one of the gods, but speaks freely (parrhēsiazetai) as if from a wagon.”40 Frankness (parrhēsia) is an important but complex value in Lucian; the fusion of parrhēsia and aischrologia in this passage shows that Lucian’s fascination with laughter rites for Dionysus “from the wagons,” which were still being performed,41 stemmed at least in part from the connections he saw between ritual ridicule on one hand, and mockery in literature and philosophy on the other.42 In a masterful touch the author here uses the phrase to let Zeus describe Epicurean arguments criticizing the gods, instead of rituals honoring them.43 In the largest festival for Dionysus, the City Dionysia, the element of ritual ridicule occurred side by side with laughter-­provoking mockery in the theater. The procession of phalli, accompanied by phallic song, is reminiscent of the model genitalia that were used in the Thesmophoria. During the festival actors wearing phalli as part of their costume performed satyr plays and comedies explicitly aimed at making audiences laugh, and already in antiquity the comic elements of the plays performed during the Dionysia were connected to, and even seen as outgrowths of, ritual mockery for Dionysus. Modern scholars have, albeit cautiously, pursued similar interpretations.44 To the extent that the comedic elements of the plays performed at the Dionysia, and the human laughter they provoked, were analogous to ritual laughter, they must have been thought to be pleasing to Dionysus. A striking passage from Lucian’s dialogue Fisherman reflects this very idea. In the piece a group of philosophers has sued a character named Parrhesiades for performing pieces that made fun of them.45 They have chosen Diogenes the Cynic as their spokesperson. He argues that—­ unlike Parrhesiades—­writers of comedy such as Aristophanes and Eupolis have 39. Eun. 2 and I. trag. 44 with Σ in Rabe 1971 [1906], 77–­78, 202; the scholiasts did not notice Pseudol. 32. The only occurrence before Lucian is D. 18.122; Philemon F 43 Kock is not proverbial. After Lucian see e.g., S.E., M. 1.59.8, referring to D. 18.122, proverbial at Jul., Ep. 80.50, and many later occurrences in Christian texts. In modern Greek τα εξ αμάξης still refers to coarse mockery, Halliwell 2008, 180n75. 40. I. trag. 44: ὡς δαιμόνων οὐδενὸς ἁνὴρ φείδεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἁμάξης παρρησιάζεται. 41. D.H. 7.72.11; Zen. 4.80. 42. On parrhēsia in Lucian see now Fields 2020, 162–­90; cf. Branham 1989a, 29–­34; Camerotto 2014, 225–­83. On aischrologia and iambic poetry see Bowie 2001, 1–­3; O’Higgins 2003, 58–­85; Rosen 2007, 47–­57. 43. Cf. Thompson 2008, 164n436. 44. E.g., Halliwell 2008, 181–­83, 206–­14; Bierl 2011; Hawkins 2016. 45. The audience is prompted to think primarily, but not exclusively, of Vit. Auct., see also chapter 1.

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the license of the festival because their work is performed during the Dionysia. Diogenes says: The joke is considered part of the festival (heortē), and “the god, being a laughter-­lover, rejoices just as much.”46 In his argument Diogenes connects Dionysus’ enjoyment of the festival with the experience of the audience, having just commented on the popularity of comedy plays at Athens. He makes the case that jokes and laughter are necessary components of the Dionysia because Dionysus himself is a laughter-­lover. Lucian has Diogenes cite what is likely a comic fragment, though otherwise unknown. It cannot be proven that it referred to Dionysus in its original context, but this seems probable: the two playwrights Diogenes mentions, Aristophanes and Eupolis, were both famous for using Dionysus as a protagonist.47 The play would have been performed during the Dionysia, and the verse may have been a remark on the purpose of the festival and of the play specifically: to please Dionysus.48 The word “laughter-­lover” (philogelōs) entails an ambiguity about what precisely pleases Dionysus. Does he enjoy the festival because he likes to hear the worshippers laugh at the performances? Does he himself like to laugh, and is this why he derives pleasure from comedy and satyr play? Or does Dionysus’ laughter-­loving nature incorporate both aspects? Dio Chrysostom in his First Tarsian Oration suggests that Dionysus “advised” the Athenians “to go to the theater in order to be abused, and to institute contests and a prize for those who do this rather well,” and that this is why they watched insulting plays by Aristophanes, Cratinus, and Plato (the playwright) without punishing them.49 In this speech Dio focuses more on the wholesome effects of mockery than on laughter, actually placing Archilochus’ 46. Pisc. 25: τὸ σκῶμμα ἐδόκει μέρος τι τῆς ἑορτῆς, καὶ “ὁ θεὸς ἴσως ἔχαιρε φιλόγελώς τις ὤν.” I have opted to translate ἴσως “equally” (LSJ A.II) because of the context; “probably” (LSJ A.III) would be too weak for Diogenes’ argument. I return to the implications of this passage for Lucianic performance see section 3 below. 47. Ar., Ra. (on which see below in this section); Eupol., Tax., on Dionysus’ role in Tax. see Storey 2003, 250–­57. At Men., Dysc. 968 the adjective describes the goddess Nike. 48. Kock 237, included among the adespota of New Comedy and glossing ὁ θεός as “Bacchus”; Kassel and Austin do not include it. The line is reminiscent of Ar., Ra. 371. For New Comedy at the Dionysia see Marshall and Hawkins 2016, 7–­12. φιλόγελως is used of Dionysus later at Chor. 32.3.31 and at Jul., Caes. 3.6; it is also the title of a fourth-­century CE joke collection, see chapters 3 and 6. 49. D. Chr. 33.9: Ἀθηναῖοι γὰρ εἰωθότες ἀκούειν κακῶς, καὶ νὴ Δία ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦτο συνιόντες εἰς τὸ θέατρον ὡς λοιδορηθησόμενοι, καὶ προτεθεικότες ἀγῶνα καὶ νίκην τοῖς ἄμεινον αὐτὸ πράττουσιν, οὐκ αὐτοὶ τοῦτο εὑρόντες, ἀλλὰ τοῦ θεοῦ συμβουλεύσαντος. Text from Cohoon and Crosby 1940.

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blame poetry above Old Comedy. But Dio’s argument about Dionysus’ overseeing the introduction of comedy at his festival does imply that the god wants to make humans laugh at themselves.50 A third-­century CE hymn inscribed at Dura-­Europos repeatedly asks Dionysus “to come laughing”;51 a hexameter epigram listing epithets of Dionysus in alphabetic order also includes “laughing” and “lover of smiles.”52 Evidently, worshippers of Dionysus performed ritual mockery for him, and they could imagine the god himself laughing. In Lucian’s Fisherman Dionysus’ propensity for laughter explains the mockery on stage at the Dionysia, and to make this point the author used a verse likely drawn from a comedy performed at a festival for Dionysus. Ralph Rosen, however, has argued that there is no good evidence that comic aischrology on stage derived from ritual mockery: audiences did not need the precedent of ritual to enjoy the mockery of Aristophanes’ comedies.53 The notion that ritual mockery produced comic aischrology is indeed likely an oversimplification, nor did such humor need the sanctioning of ritual precedent to work. Yet, regardless of how we understand the actual genealogy of Old Comedy, Dio’s speech illustrates clearly that in the imperial period comic aischrology was still thought to have divine origins. With respect to the more specific phenomenon of laughing at the gods I am pursuing here, this divine sanction of mockery becomes even more relevant. When Dionysus appears on stage as a character in the plays that were performed in his honor he often does so laughing, both with merriment and with frightening cruelty. Dionysus’ laughter-­and-­being-­laughed-­at on stage encompasses the complexity of laughter itself, which corroborates his status as a divinity with a special affinity to mockery, scurrility, and delight. There are only two fully extant plays, Euripides’ Bacchae and Aristophanes’ Frogs, in which Dionysus features as a protagonist; Lucian’s audiences likely would have been familiar at least with the broad outline of both plays, and Lucian himself knew them well.54 50. Dio follows tradition in imagining Archilochus’ blame poetry as sanctioned by Apollo (Or. 33.12); cf. Nagy 1999, ch. 18; Compton 2006, ch. 3, appendix A; Hawkins 2014, 186–­215. 51. δεῦρο γελῶν, Porter 1948, 29; cf. Halliwell 2008, 137n86. 52. AP 9.524.4, 22: γελόωντα, φιλομειδέα. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 137n86; Ford 2011, 343. At h. Bacc. 14 Dionysus “smiles” (μειδιάων), but this activity has different connotations, now and in antiquity; a laughing Dionysus cannot readily be found in visual art, cf. Halliwell 2008, 520–­52. 53. Rosen 2015. Chepel (2020, 15) likewise rejects connecting ritual mockery for Dionysus with Old Comedy, yet she also argues that the inclusion of rituals in the dramatic action served to make plays “religiously relevant” and thereby “most pleasing” to Dionysus (188), which is analogous to my argument that Old Comedy provokes laughter (at least in part) to please the laughter-­ loving god. 54. Especially underworld pieces such as Nec., VH, D. mort., Cat. are rich in allusions to Ar., Ra.; on ancient reception of Ra. see Griffith 2013, 225–­33. For allusions to E., Ba. see D. Deor. 22.1

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In the opening of Frogs Aristophanes has the god Dionysus, who is first and foremost a lover and arbiter of tragedy in the play, reminisce about sitting in the audience at performances of comedy, reflecting on good and bad jokes. Dionysus relegates the cracks of his slave Xanthias to the latter category (Ra. 16–­19). Later on, he explains to Aeschylus what kind of thing he does find funny: when a bad runner at the Panathenaia got beat up by the audience and farted, Dionysus “died laughing.”55 Aristophanes depicts the god as someone who has opinions about humor, who likes to laugh, and whose most memorable laughing fit took place at a religious festival. Second, Dionysus features as a humorist who makes fun of other characters in order to make the audience laugh throughout the Frogs; an important butt is Heracles, as Dionysus mocks him for being an empty-­headed glutton.56 But Dionysus himself is also frequently the butt of the joke. Heracles cracks up at his bad Heracles-­disguise,57 and the audience gets to watch the god soil himself from fear, twice.58 In Frogs Aristophanes appears to connect the mockery of his play with ritual mockery for the gods. He has the chorus refer to comedies as “mystery rites (teletai) of Dionysus,”59 and Dionysus dances along with a chorus of Eleu­sinian initiates as they slander politicians in song, performing a version of gephyrismos.60 This moment constitutes a double scurrility rite: within the play the chorus offers mockery and laughter to the goddesses of the mysteries, and Dionysus joins them, while the play as a whole makes fun of Dionysus in honor of him. Dionysus’ success in bringing Aeschylus up to Athens from the underworld by the end of the play shows that his authority as a god is affirmed in Frogs.61 With this play Aristophanes meshes together laughing at and laughing with a laughter-­loving representation of Dionysus, played by an actor, while offering up both the play’s mockery and the audience’s laughter as gifts to the god. and Ind. 19, where Lucian portrays it as widely available, cf. Cover 2018. On Lucian’s knowledge of Attic drama see Introduction. 55. Ar., Ra. 1089–­90: ὥστ᾽ ἐπαφαυάνθην / Παναθηναίοισι γελῶν; cf. Dover 1993, 328; Sommerstein 1996, 254. 56. Ar., Ra. 60–­65. 57. Ar., Ra. 42–­43. 58. Ar., Ra. 308, 479–­90. Σ on Pax 741 suggests that Dionysus the coward was a stock character in comedy, cf. Parker 2005, 150n60; Revermann 2014, 281n21. 59. Ar., Ra. 368; cf. Halliwell 2008, 212; Chepel 2020, 129–­30. 60. Ar., Ra. 375, 411–­34; cf. Bowie 1993, 239–­40; Lada-­Richards 1999, 98, 156–­58; Rosen 2007, 29–­30; Griffith 2013, 181–­82; contra Dover (1993, 247–­48) who connects the passage to a Eupolis fragment instead, cf. Edmonds 2004, 126. On the broader connections between Ra. and the Eleu­ sinian mysteries see especially Lada-­Richards 1999. As an inverted gephyrismos where the initiates mock instead of being mocked it comes closer to aischrologia, which is also attested for the Eleusinian mysteries; cf. Halliwell 2008, 211–­14. 61. Cf. Revermann 2014, 280.

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Dionysus’ laughter takes a dark turn in Bacchae: Pentheus is punished for laughing at the rites of Dionysus, and the god engineers this punishment not only with a laughing countenance, but also, he says, to make Pentheus a source of laughter to others.62 In this play laughter is dangerous and frightful. It is surprising, then, to hear the chorus toward the beginning of the play praise Dionysus for “dancing with the choruses, laughing with the flute, and bringing an end to cares.”63 Another problem is that there are genuinely funny moments in Bacchae. When Pentheus laughs at Cadmus and Teiresias audience members might well have laughed along, precisely because Euripides has painted the preparations of the two old men for Bacchic revelry with a comic brush.64 The same can be said for the scene where Dionysus, himself in disguise, dresses Pentheus up as a Bacchant in order to “help” him spy on the rites that will be his undoing.65 In Bacchae, Euripides not only uses his representation of Dionysus to illustrate the volatility of laughter between joy and destruction, but he also makes the audience complicit in the terror of this unpredictable phenomenon. They have laughed with Pentheus at the old-­men-­revelry, and they have laughed with Dionysus at Pentheus’ delusions, only to witness Agave’s heart-­rending horror at the end of the play when she realizes what she has done to her own son. Bacchae shows the reverse scenario of the interaction between Demeter and Iambe in Hymn to Demeter. In the one instance laughter at the goddess makes her laugh with delight, in the other it makes him laugh with unspeakable cruelty; in both cases humans are expected and encouraged to laugh along with the divinity. Bacchae and Frogs show that when Dionysus is featured as a protagonist in plays written for his festival, laughter is explicitly thematized, even when the play in question is a tragedy. Ritual mockery, mockery in drama, and the image of Dionysus as a laughter-­loving god together form a loose web, in which the components do not necessarily produce or legitimate one another, but collectively they reinforce and reproduce a meaningful link between the god Dionysus and laughter, joyful or cruel. For Lucian’s audience this connection between worship and laughter, reiterated in Diogenes’ argument in Fisherman, was part of their cultural tradition, reaching back to fifth-­century BCE Athens and fur62. Laughter of Pentheus: E., Ba. 250, 272, 286, 322, 1080–­81; laughing Dionysus: Ba. 439, 1021; Pentheus as source of laughter: Ba. 854. I follow Halliwell (2008, 136–­37) in understanding Dionysus as actually laughing in the play, rather than wearing a smiling mask. 63. E., Ba. 379–­81: θιασεύειν τε χοροῖς / μετά τ᾽ αὐλοῦ γελάσαι / ἀποπαῦσαί τε μερίμνας. 64. E., Ba. 170–­369; cf. Dodds 1960, 90–­91; Seidensticker 1978, 314–­15; Segal 1982, 254–­56. Against a humorous tone in Ba.: Dillon 1991, 351–­52; Donzelli 2006, 1–­17; Halliwell 2008, 134. Goldhill (2006c, 91) argues that once Pentheus laughs “any previous audience laughter dies in the throat.” 65. E., Ba. 912–­76; cf. Dodds 1960, 192; Seidensticker 1978, 317–­18. The dressing scene has been compared to the dressing scene from Ar., Th. 249–­65; cf. Hanink 2014, 265–­66.

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ther, and continuing in their own religious and cultural landscape: in addition to the still occurring festivals for Demeter and Dionysus,66 several quintessentially Roman festivals also featured ritual mockery. In the celebration of a triumph a conquering general paraded the spoils of war through Rome alongside the animals to be sacrificed to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. The general was dressed up to resemble the cult statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus,67 and the soldiers sang songs about him, carmina triumphalia, that were often obscene and insulting. After his victory in the Gallic Wars his soldiers celebrated Julius Caesar with verses like “city-­men, watch your wives, we are bringing the bald adulterer home,” and worse.68 In the first century BCE Dionysius of Halicarnassus already noted the similarity of this part of the triumphal procession to Greek aischrologia in general, and the mockery from the wagons for Dionysus in particular: It is allowed to those soldiers who accompany the spoils into the city to ridicule and mock the most important men, even the generals, just as since earlier times it has been allowed to the Athenian revelers on the wagons to ride along making jokes. Now the soldiers sing self-­made songs.69 Although he does not argue for direct influence, Dionysius understands the songs as part of a long aischrological tradition, and modern scholars now share this view.70 In the Roman triumph aischrologia is directed at the general who is embodying Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the same moment as he is mocked. Participants in the mocking songs, since the general appears in garb imitating the statue of Jupiter, laugh at the god’s representation during a ritual for the same god. The ritual, then, is structurally similar to laughing at an actor portraying Dionysus when Frogs was performed.71 66. See Aristid., Or. 29 for second-­century CE Dionysia at Smyrna, cf. Jones 1993; Peterson 2019 [2016], 70–­80. 67. Plin., Nat. 33.111–­12; Plu., Quaest. Rom. 287D; cf. Versnel 2006, 304–­8; contra Rüpke 2006, 261; Beard 2007, 225–­33. 68. Suet., Jul. 51: urbani, servate uxores: moechum calvom adducimus; cf. Jul. 49: “Caesar subjected Gaul, Nicomedes subjected Caesar” (Gallias Caesar subegit, Nicomedes Caesarem). 69. D.H. 7.72.11: ἐφεῖται γὰρ τοῖς κατάγουσι τὰς νίκας ἰαμβίζειν τε καὶ κατασκώπτειν τοὺς ἐπιφανεστάτους ἄνδρας αὐτοῖς στρατηλάταις, ὡς Ἀθήνησι τοῖς πομπευταῖς τοῖς ἐπὶ τῶν ἁμαξῶν πρότερον ἅμα {τοῖς} σκώμμασι παροχουμένοις, νῦν δὲ ποιήματ᾽ ᾄδουσιν αὐτοσχέδια. Text follows Jacoby 1891. 70. Rüpke 2006, 268; Beard 2007, 85–­92, 247–­49, 306, 314–­18, 386–­87. Varro (L. 6.68) connects the triumph with Dionysus through etymology. Pace the apotropaic explanation, relying on Tert., Apol. 33, that the songs had to prevent the general from thinking he actually was a god, e.g., Künzl 1988, 88; O’Neill 2003, 2–­4; Clarke 2007, 20–­21. 71. Even if Romans knew that the dressed up general was just a man, his appearance would have evoked the god and his image strongly, cf. Versnel 1970, 56–­93; 2006, 299–­301. Plaut., Am.

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Though he does not specifically discuss the carmina triumphalia, Lucian mentions the (anticipated) triumph of Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius over the Parthians, which was celebrated in 166 CE,72 and his generation could also still have heard eyewitness reports about the posthumous triumph for Trajan in 117 CE. He does write extensively about the ritual laughter and mockery that was part of another Roman festival, the Saturnalia. One of his pieces is devoted entirely to the festival,73 and it features the god Cronus giving instructions to a human interlocutor on how his festival should be celebrated.74 Cronus says that the celebrations should include “drinking, being drunk, shouting, playing, games of dice, appointing masters of the revels, feasting the slaves, and singing naked,” and also having to complete “ridiculous tasks” like “shouting something shameful about yourself ” if you lose in the knucklebone game.75 The interlocutor and the god reenact part of the festival, when the former asks Cronus if it is true that he ate his children, and that Zeus tricked him with the stone. The god responds that “if we were not celebrating the festival and it was not allowed to slander your masters with impunity,” the interlocutor would have been in trouble, and that in fact he abdicated voluntarily.76 Lucian’s playful treatment of the Saturnalia foregrounds Cronus’ endorsement of the scurrility, and even has him participate, in the sense that the god willingly endures aischrologia. The vocabulary Lucian uses to describe the Saturnalia—­ridicule, shameful, slander, playing—­evokes the ritual laughter for inverts the carmina triumphalia by having Jupiter act as victorious general for a day, while Amphitryo undergoes aischrologia upon returning from war, which Jupiter appears to enjoy, Am. 545, 861–­983; cf. Christenson 2000, 174–­77; O’Neill 2003, 1; Beard 2003, 42; 2007, 253–­56. 72. Hist. conscr. 31; the passage is commonly used to date Hist. conscr. to just before 166 CE, Free 2015, 16–­18. 73. Sat. is about the Saturnalia rather than the Greek Kronia, because the festival is said to last seven winter days, while the Kronia lasted only one day in late summer; on the relation between the two festivals see Macr. 1.7.36; Versnel 1993, 136–­46; Burkert 2003c [1993], 14–­17. Graf (2015, 87) suggests that Sat. describes Saturnalia in the East, because reference to free men exchanging their togas for the pilleus is omitted. For Saturnalia in Athens see Gel. 18.2.1; in Syria (in Lucius Verus’ retinue, which may have included Lucian): SHA, Verus 7.5; cf. Jones 1986, 87n40; Beard, North, and Price 1998, 337. Modern scholarship on Sat. has focused on genre (Popescu 2016; Slater 2013) and social criticism (Baldwin 1973, 109–­10; contra Hall 1981, 221–­51) rather than the festival; I return to it in chapter 5. 74. Lucian’s referring to the god as Cronus rather than Saturn is in line with the general practice of imperial authors writing in Greek. The human interlocutor in the first section of Sat. is called “a priest” in the indications of speaker, but this is likely a scribal invention. Cronus addresses him only as ὦ οὗτος, e.g., Sat. 5, and it strains credibility that a priest would be so ignorant about the Saturnalia. 75. Sat. 2–­4: πίνειν δὲ καὶ μεθύειν καὶ βοᾶν καὶ παίζειν καὶ κυβεύειν καὶ ἄρχοντας καθιστάναι καὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας εὐωχεῖν καὶ γυμνὸν ᾄδειν . . . ὡς μήτε ἐπιταχθείης γελοῖα ἐπιτάγματα . . . τῷ μὲν αἰσχρόν τι περὶ αὑτοῦ ἀναβοῆσαι. 76. Sat. 5: εἰ μὴ ἑορτήν, ὦ οὗτος, ἤγομεν καὶ . . . ἐφεῖτο καὶ λοιδορεῖσθαι τοῖς δεσπόταις ἐπ᾿ ἐξουσίας.

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Demeter and Dionysus. The aischrologia exchanged between Cronus and the interlocutor is part of a competition in aetiology with respect to the festival. The human interlocutor thinks that Cronus is kind to slaves during the festival because he himself was put in chains by Zeus (Sat. 5, 8), but the god rebuffs him humorously. Cronus explains, with a playful reworking of Hesiod’s Works and Days, that the Saturnalia serve to remind humans of what life was like under his rule during the golden age, when the earth gave its fruits freely.77 “Because of this,” says Cronus, “there is clapping everywhere and singing and playing games and equal honors for everyone, both slaves and free men. For in my time there were no slaves.”78 In Lucian’s telling the Saturnalia is a time of pleasure, abandon, and mockery, because Cronus likes to give all humans a reprieve from everyday life.79 The god is depicted as enjoying the festival himself as well, and he is even happy to mock and be mocked to mark the occasion. The dialogue Saturnalia is reminiscent both of the Hymn to Demeter, where the tension created by Iambe’s mocking of the goddess is broken when she laughs instead of getting angry, and of Plutarch’s discussion of Leto in On Superstition, where she, just as Cronus here, is imagined as laughing off false stories about herself. The performance of ritual laughter for many Greek gods throughout the long history of Greek and Roman religion shows clearly that laughter as such was not antithetical to worship. Narratives connected to this ritual laughter, and to the gods receiving this laughter, depict gods as laughter-­lovers, whose mirth is understood as inviting and legitimating human laughter—­but not unequivocally so. When it is unwelcome, laughing at a god can be extremely dangerous. By retaliating the god shows that the laugher made a mistake and stands in need of correction. Ultimately, gods who are deserving of human worship either enjoy laughter and mockery even at their expense, or, if they are displeased, they make this plainly known. Laughter does not weaken, let alone kill them.

Gods, Philosophers, Laughter In a clear sign of the renown and significance of ritual laughter, several ancient philosophers felt they needed to have an opinion about it. The same is true for 77. Hes., Op. 109–­20; cf. Versnel 1993, 151, 205–­10. 78. Sat. 7: αὕτη μοι ἡ αἰτία τῆς ὀλιγοχρονίου ταύτης δυναστείας, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἁπανταχοῦ κρότος καὶ ᾠδὴ καὶ παιδιὰ καὶ ἰσοτιμία πᾶσι καὶ δούλοις καὶ ἐλευθέροις. οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἐπ᾿ ἐμοῦ δοῦλος ἦν. 79. Modern interpreters have focused on the festival’s temporary role reversal of masters and slaves, and the violent succession of Uranus, Cronus, and then Zeus, e.g., Versnel 1993, 150–­63; Scullard 1981, 205–­7; Dolansky 2011; contra Beard 2014, 62–­65.

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humorous depictions of the gods in literature and painting. These two debates intersect on the question of whether or not the gods like laughter, be it from humans or their own. The evidence discussed in this chapter so far answers both questions affirmatively: the performance of laughter rituals is predicated on the assumption that at least some gods would appreciate such an offer sometimes, which is made explicit in the depiction of gods as laughter-­lovers in narratives connected to this ritual laughter. The philosophical reflections that I turn to in this section offer different critical assessments of ritual laughter and imagining gods as laughing. Tied up with the issue of laughing gods, ultimately, is the nature and role of the gods as such: are they stable models of goodness for worshippers to strive after, or fickle forces alternating between mirth and wrath? I start with Plato’s treatment of ritual laughter, which is the earliest explicit response that has been transmitted. Plato has the Spartan Megillus and the unnamed Athenian talk about ritual scurrility in Laws. Megillus praises his city for outlawing scurrilous behavior in honor of Dionysus, mentioning specifically the hurling of insults “on the wagons.”80 The Athenian responds to Megillus with qualified approval of the wagon ritual: Lacedaemonian stranger, things like that are all praiseworthy where there exists a certain moral fiber, but where people are slack, such things are quite stupid.81 As long as the participants have “moral fiber” Dionysian scurrility rituals are not just acceptable, but even “praiseworthy.” Those who are “slack,” it seems, might be overcome by the destabilizing force of laughter, and this is why they should not participate. The Athenian does not question ritual laughter as a proper way of honoring the gods. Aristotle, like Plato, is interested in who participates in laughter rituals. He discusses ritual scurrility in a section of Politics on suitable art for the city, saying: The rulers must therefore arrange that there may be no sculpture or painting that represents indecent actions, except in the temples of a certain class of gods to whom the law allows even scurrility. In regard to these the custom permits men of fitting age to worship the gods both 80. Pl., Lg. 637A–­B: ἐν ἁμάξαις. Megillus implies that he has seen mockery from the wagons at the (rural) Dionysia in Tarentum. 81. Pl., Lg. 637B: ὦ Λακεδαιμόνιε ξένε, ἐπαινετὰ μὲν πάντ᾽ ἐστὶν τὰ τοιαῦτα, ὅπου τινὲς ἔνεισιν καρτερήσεις, ὅπου δὲ ἀνεῖνται, βλακικώτερα.

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on their own behalf and on behalf of the children and women: but the younger ones must not be included as spectators at mockeries and comedies before they reach the age at which . . . their education will render them wholly immune to the harmful effects of such things.82 Aristotle argues in this section of Politics that shameful speech, painting, and sculpture should be banned from the city, but he makes an exception for scurrility rites. Like the Athenian in Laws, Aristotle is concerned about the fortitude of its participants, leading him to decide that only adult men can participate, who will have to perform the ritual on behalf of their children and wives. This provision suggests that it seemed essential to Aristotle that everybody in the city would be able to participate in laughter rituals, even if they could do so only by proxy. After Aristotle we next find detailed reflection on ritual laughter in one of Plutarch’s dialogues, voiced by a character named Cleombrotus. Following a description of (Dionysiac) mysteries Cleombrotus mentions “scurrilous language (aischrologia) in the shrines in many places”; these kinds of rituals are performed not for gods, but are used to “avert evil demigods.”83 In his treatise On Isis and Osiris Plutarch returns to the topic, and attributes to Plato’s student Xenocrates the view that “festivals  .  .  . containing foul speech and scurrilous language (aischrologia) do not belong to the honors for gods and good demigods, but are for natures in the space around us, great, strong, moody and angry, who enjoy such things, and having obtained them abstain from anything worse.”84 Both interpretations, which do not necessarily reflect Plutarch’s own view, place aischrologia at a distance from the gods, in the latter case even away from demigods. For Plutarch the divine is good, stable, and just, and this suggests why imagining them enjoying aischrologia would indeed be problematic for him. Connecting aischrologia instead to interstitial divine beings, who admit of good 82. Arist., Pol. 1336B: ἐπιμελὲς μὲν οὖν ἔστω τοῖς ἄρχουσι μηθέν, μήτε ἄγαλμα μήτε γραφήν, εἶναι τοιούτων πράξεων μίμησιν, εἰ μὴ παρά τισι θεοῖς τοιούτοις οἷς καὶ τὸν τωθασμὸν ἀποδίδωσιν ὁ νόμος. πρὸς δὲ τούτους ἀφίησιν ὁ νόμος τοὺς τὴν ἡλικίαν ἔχοντας {ἔτι} τὴν ἱκνουμένην καὶ ὑπὲρ αὑτῶν καὶ τέκνων καὶ γυναικῶν τιμαλφεῖν τοὺς θεούς· τοὺς δὲ νεωτέρους οὔτ᾽ ἰάμβων οὔτε κωμῳδίας θεατὰς θετέον, πρὶν ἢ τὴν ἡλικίαν λάβωσιν . . . καὶ τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων γιγνομένης βλάβης ἀπαθεῖς ἡ παιδεία ποιήσει πάντως. 83. Plu., De Defect. 417C: πολλαχοῦ δὲ πάλιν αἰσχρολογίαι πρὸς ἱεροῖς . . . θεῶν μὲν οὐδενὶ δαιμόνων δὲ φαύλων ἀποτροπῆς ἕνεκα . . . τελεῖσθαι. 84. Plu., Isid. 361B: καὶ τῶν ἑορτῶν ὅσαι . . . δυσφημίας ἢ αἰσχρολογίαν ἔχουσιν οὔτε θεῶν τιμαῖς οὔτε δαιμόνων οἴεται προσήκειν χρηστῶν, ἀλλ᾿ εἶναι φύσεις ἐν τῷ περιέχοντι μεγάλας μὲν καὶ ἰσχυράς, δυστρόπους δὲ καὶ σκυθρωπάς, αἳ χαίρουσι τοῖς τοιούτοις, καὶ τυγχάνουσαι πρὸς οὐδὲν ἄλλο χεῖρον τρέπονται.

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and evil, is in a sense quite a Platonic solution, but one which is not seen as necessary in Plato’s own dialogues—­both Plato and Plutarch knew that this “solution” was not reflective of religious practice.85 Two of Lucian’s contemporaries, Aelius Aristides and Maximus of Tyre, have also left us remarks specifically on ritual aischrologia. Aristides, in an oration known as Concerning the Prohibition of Comedy, inveighs against it in strong terms. I interpret the speech as addressing both comedic performances involving scurrility for Dionysus and ritual scurrility as it occurred outside the theater:86 Aristides’ vocabulary includes terms typically used to describe aischrologia rituals,87 and he distinguishes between shameful speech for the god inside the theater and bad language uttered for him outside—­though he is equally critical of both.88 His criticism starts from the peculiarity of ritual scurrility as compared to other rites: If we regard this practice as dear to the gods, we contradict ourselves in avoiding the same whenever we approach the gods. But if we believe that it is hateful to them and yet we delight in it, how is our conduct pious?89 Because the shameful typically is avoided in ritual contexts, argues Aristides, how can it be justified in scurrility for Dionysus? For the sake of his argument Aristides demands a level of consistency from the religious practices of his contemporaries that is anathema to this realm. The underlying point, however, is similar to Plutarch’s: aischrologia and other forms of scurrility are hateful to Aristides’ intrinsically good gods, and ought to be avoided in all rituals.90 Fur85. Key passages for daimon(es) are Pl., Smp. 202E–­203A; R. 379C, 617D–­E; Ti. 90A–­C; the issue of “daimonology” in Plato is complex, for an introduction and further bibliography see Sfameni Gasparro 2015; on these issues in Plutarch see Brenk 2017 [1987]; Ferrari 2005; Roig Lanzillotta 2012; Dillon 2014, 68–­70; Hirsch-­Luipold 2014, 169–­73. 86. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 201; contra Behr 1981, 388. I follow Peterson (2019 [2016], 70–­80) in understanding these plays as reperformances of Aristophanes, or newly written Old Comedy containing aischrologia; contra Jones 1993, 41; cf. Nervegna 2013, 119. 87. E.g., Aristid., Or. 29.8: “to slander” (λοιδορήσασθαι); 29.10: “to listen to and say the most shameful things” (τὰ αἴσχιστα ἀκούειν καὶ λέγειν). 88. Aristid., Or. 29.13–­14: κακηγορίας ἆθλα τίθεμεν ( . . . ) ἃ δὲ ποιήσαντας ἢ παθόντας οὐ θέμις εἴσω περιραντηρίων παριέναι, ταῦτ’ ἐν μέσοις ἱεροῖς ᾄδομεν. The prizes of the theater are contrasted with what people say in the temples by δέ. Similarly at 29.4–­5 “poets and actors” of comedy are distinguished from nonprofessional “joking”; μήτε ποιητὰς εἶναι τούτων μήτε ἀγωνιστὰς, μηδὲ παίζειν ἃ μὴ βέλτιον. Text from Keil 1898. 89. Aristid., Or. 29.10–­11: καὶ μὴν εἰ μὲν φίλον αὐτὸ νομίζομεν τοῖς θεοῖς, τὰ ἐναντία ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς γιγνώσκομεν, φυλαττόμενοι ταὐτὸν τοῦτο, ὁπόταν προσίωμεν τοῖς θεοῖς, εἰ δ’ ἐχθρὸν ἡγούμενοι χαίρομεν αὐτῷ, πῶς εὐσεβῶς διακείμεθα; 90. Aristid., Or. 29.8; cf. Or. 46.36. On the gods in Aristides see Parker 2016; Downie 2019.

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thermore, Aristides continues, shameful speech also has a bad influence on the morals of youths, women, children, and the masses.91 Maximus of Tyre, finally, offers only a brief glimpse of ritual laughter. In sharp contrast to Aristides he appears to assess scurrility for Dionysus positively. In the course of a discussion about pleasure and whether or not it can be virtuous, Maximus brings up the fact that “people laugh in the rites of Dionysus” as an argument in favor of the possibility of virtuous pleasure.92 While Aristides removes aischrologia and laughter from the religious sphere as being unsuitable, Maximus points to the role of laughter in the religious sphere as a way to legitimate it in other contexts. The interest of Greek imperial authors in scurrility rituals as an ongoing phenomenon further corroborates that these practices were still common in Lucian’s day. That so many thinkers felt compelled to address scurrility rituals in one way or another is remarkable in its own right. Neither Plato nor Aristotle contests the principle that the gods could be honored through laughter. It is perhaps tempting to see a chronological development behind the differences of opinion between Plato and Aristotle, on one hand, and Plutarch and Aristides on the other, but the positive view of Maximus of Tyre complicates this. Even though Plutarch and Aristides would deny that the gods might consider laughter rituals an honor, they do not seem to think that being honored with laughter would undermine the gods in any way. The danger of these rituals, instead, lies in the effect they might have on humans, which also worried Plato and Aristotle. In Lucianic performance audiences encountered gods who, on occasion, enjoy laughing, confirming Diogenes’ description of Dionysus as laughter-­ loving in Fisherman. Additionally, Lucian frequently paints gods with a comic brush in order to provoke laughter from his audience with or at gods, depending on the scene in question. We have seen how ritual laughter often coincided with imagining as laughing those gods who were honored in this way. In order to address the issue of what it means to laugh with or at the gods specifically in literature, I return to the laughing gods of Homeric epic. In Homeric epic the gods burst out in “unquenchable laughter” twice, once in the Iliad and once in the Odyssey. I have already discussed the first instance, Hephaestus’ successful comic act as a cupbearer, in the Introduction, and the second, where the gods laugh at the spectacle of Ares and Aphrodite caught in flagrante, will be treated in chapter 4. Both passages greatly influenced later 91. Aristid., Or. 29.16–­19. 92. Max. Tyr. 32.10: οἱ δὲ ἐν Διονύσου γελῶσιν. I follow the numbering and text of Trapp 1994 throughout.

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representations of laughing and comic gods, and Xenophanes included the second passage in his critique of Homer and Hesiod, which, in turn, was the starting point for the subsequent philosophical discourse about laughing gods in literature. In a fragment preserved by Sextus Empiricus, Xenophanes writes that Homer and Hesiod “have attributed everything to the gods that is blameworthy and shameful for humans: stealing, committing adultery, and tricking each other.”93 The mention of “committing adultery” makes it clear that Xenophanes takes aim, among other passages, at the adultery scene from the Odyssey, which aroused the gods’ unquenchable laughter. Xenophanes rejects both ethical and physical anthropomorphism, positing instead gods who are separate, immobile, and even aloof from humans; it is foolish to project our human bodies and behaviors—­including, presumably laughter—­onto them.94 In Republic Plato engages Xenophanes’ critique at length, though without mentioning him by name. Toward the end of the second book Socrates introduces to Adeimantus the problem of poetry. Homer and Hesiod falsely depict the gods as violent toward each other; even if these depictions should be true, they are harmful for the young, and must be told only if it is unavoidable, to the fewest men (R. 377D–­378A). Socrates, alluding to the deeds of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus, gives the following reason: It should not be read out to a young listener that, when he commits the worst crimes, or punishes his father who is also doing wrong in every way possible, he would be doing nothing remarkable, but would rather be doing the same thing that the foremost and greatest gods did.95 He goes on to argue that poetry should say true things about the gods, namely that they are good and that nothing harmful comes from them, that they do not undergo any change, and that they do not deceive humans (R. 379A–­383C). At the opening of the third book of Republic Socrates and Adeimantus turn to the question of depicting gods’ laughing, still in the context of the education of the young, and they discuss what we have labeled the “first” instance of unquenchable Homeric divine laughter: 93. Xenoph., F 11 DK: ὅσσα παρ᾽ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀνείδεα καὶ ψόγος ἐστίν, κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν. 94. Xenoph., F 15–16, 23–26 DK. I follow Warren (2013) and Sassi (2013) here; earlier interpretations take Xenophanes’ gods as more interventionist, e.g., Lesher 1992, 83–­85; Babut (1974, 435) emphasizes the “negative nature of Xenophanes’ theological reflections.” 95. Pl., R. 378B: οὐδὲ λεκτέον νέῳ ἀκούοντι ὡς ἀδικῶν τὰ ἔσχατα οὐδὲν ἂν θαυμαστὸν ποιοῖ, οὐδ’ αὖ ἀδικοῦντα πατέρα κολάζων παντὶ τρόπῳ, ἀλλὰ δρῴη ἂν ὅπερ θεῶν οἱ πρῶτοί τε καὶ μέγιστοι.

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S: “But they must not be laughter-­lovers. For generally when a man surrenders himself to a powerful laugh, he seeks that and also a powerful change.” A: “This is what I think,” he said. S: “So if someone shows noteworthy human beings overpowered by laughter, it must not be accepted, much less, if they are gods.” A: “Certainly,” he said, “much less.” S: “So we will not accept these words of Homer about the gods [cites Il. 1.599–­600]. They must not be accepted according to your account.” A: “If you want to consider it mine; at any rate, they must not be accepted.”96 Socrates uses the same adjective, “laughter-­ lover,” that Lucian’s Diogenes applied to Dionysus in Fisherman, to describe what the young warriors should not be. Forceful laughter can destabilize the body and mind, leading to a lack of control, and is therefore dangerous.97 Because the gods function as ethical models in Republic, the gods’ “unquenchable laughter” at Hephaestus’ playacting from the Iliad is unsuitable. Socrates closes the discussion on poetry saying that rulers must control their desires for drink, sex, and food (R. 389D–­E), and that for this reason heroes nor gods can be shown as subject to these urges, because otherwise the young might follow their example (R. 390A–­392A). Socrates singles out Zeus’ desire for Hera,98 and the capture of Aphrodite and Ares in the net as unacceptable passages from Homer (R. 390B–­C), taking up, it seems, Xenophanes’ censure of divine adultery. In Republic Plato’s Socrates adopts but also adapts Xenophanes’ rejection of ethical anthropomorphism. While Xenophanes ridicules humans for projecting their own faults onto the gods, Socrates argues that in poetry the gods must be shown to be blameless, not just because they are blameless, but also in order to inspire good behavior in humans, thereby reversing the direction of the connection between divine and human morality. Socrates considers depictions of the gods as laughing excessively alongside mentions of noteworthy men doing so. Between the two there is a difference only in degree of severity, it seems, 96. Pl., R. 388E–­389A: ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδὲ φιλογέλωτάς γε δεῖ εἶναι. σχεδὸν γὰρ ὅταν τις ἐφιῇ ἰσχυρῷ γέλωτι, ἰσχυρὰν καὶ μεταβολὴν ζητεῖ τὸ τοιοῦτον. δοκεῖ μοι, ἔφη. οὔτε ἄρα ἀνθρώπους ἀξίους λόγου κρατουμένους ὑπὸ γέλωτος ἄν τις ποιῇ, ἀποδεκτέον, πολὺ δὲ ἧττον, ἐὰν θεούς. πολὺ μέντοι, ἦ δ᾽ὅς. οὔκουν Ὁμήρου οὐδὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀποδεξόμεθα περὶ θεῶν˙ . . . οὐκ ἀποδεκτέον κατὰ τὸν σὸν λόγον. εἰ σύ, ἔφη, βούλει ἐμὸν τιθέναι˙ οὐ γὰρ οὖν δὴ ἀποδεκτέον. 97. Cf. Rosen 2005, 98; Halliwell 2008, 62. Laughter in R. must be used for the purpose of censure, to distinguish between what is praiseworthy and what is not, see e.g., R. 388D, 452B–­D. 98. Il. 14.294–­351. On this scene see chapter 4.

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not in kind, which clearly shows how strong the emphasis on exemplarity is. Socrates presumably would allow that noteworthy men occasionally are overcome by laughter, while this can not be the case for the gods who have just been said to be immune to the type of change brought on by violent laughter (R. 381A–­E), yet he does not make this distinction.99 He also does not consider what it means for some gods to be laughed at by other gods, as happens in these Homeric passages, or for humans to laugh at gods. Socrates’ rejection of divine laughter in Republic cannot be taken as representative of Plato’s views on the gods, on poetry, or on humor in general. It occurs in the specific context of a proposal about the education of the guardians for the ideal city, and some Platonic passages seem to reflect rather different attitudes. In Symposium, for instance, Plato has Aristophanes adapt the Homeric passage on the net of Hephaestus, which was censured in Republic, for specific comic and rhetorical purposes.100 In Euthyphro Socrates suggests that one of the reasons why he is being prosecuted is that he does not accept the things the poets tell about the gods, such as the story of the battle between Zeus and Cronus. Yet, rather than pursuing this topic he agrees, perhaps facetiously, with Euthyphro that the poets’ accounts are to be accepted.101 In Cratylus, finally, Socrates says that the gods are “lovers of jokes” (philopaismones), which allows him to give a “joking” (paidikōs) etymology of the names of Dionysus and Aphrodite.102 Plato’s views on poetry and myth, and on the (de)merits of humor and laughter, are clearly difficult to distill into one consistent outlook, and we should probably not want to do so.103 Nonetheless, two important points do stand out. The specific rejection of imagining the gods as overcome by laughter found in Republic is radical and unique in ancient thought,104 and must be connected to Plato’s anxieties about the power of laughter,105 on the one hand, and to his innovative attribution of a morally exemplary role to the gods on the other.106 Second, among the variety of   99. Cf. Pl., Phlb. 33B, where Socrates and Protarchus agree that the gods do “not feel pain or its opposite,” (οὔτε χαίρειν οὔτε τὸ ἐναντίον); this might imply that they do not partake of joyous laughter. 100. Pl., Smp. 192D–­E. 101. Pl., Euthphr. 6A–­D; cf. Bailly 2003, 53–­54. 102. Pl., Cra. 406B–­D. 103. On Plato and the poets see e.g., Annas 1982; Nussbaum 1982; Rosen 1988, 1–­26; 2005, 352–­76; Asmis 1992; Naddaff 2002, 121–­34; Halliwell 2011; Pappas 2012. 104. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 4. 105. Halliwell 2008, 276–­302. 106. On Plato as theological innovator see especially Bordt 2006 and Van Riel 2013; contra Morgan 1992, who emphasizes continuities between Plato and traditional religion. Analogously, in early Christianity the answer to the question whether Jesus himself had ever laughed was used to determine whether Christians should be allowed to laugh, cf. Gilhus 1997, 65–­70; 2011; Götz 2002, 1–­11.

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attitudes expressed in the dialogues we do not find an explicit argument against comic depictions of the gods in literature or visual art as such; the rejection in Republic has a narrow focus, namely showing the gods themselves in the grip of unquenchable laughter. How did other philosophers respond to Socrates’ radical position in Republic? In his Poetics Aristotle does not answer Plato directly, but his engagement with Xenophanes can be understood as an implicit rebuttal.107 Aristotle disagrees with Xenophanes’ censure of Homer and Hesiod, and suggests that poets should ward off such criticism: [Say] “that is what people say,” for instance in the case of tales about the gods: perhaps there is no advantage in telling them, and they are not true either (and Xenophanes may be right), nonetheless, people do say them.108 Aristotle defends the poets through an appeal to conventional religious ideas. His gods do not engage in good or bad behavior,109 and he may have preferred for them not to be portrayed in poetry laughing, cheating, or stealing; yet, in contrast to Socrates in Republic, Aristotle appears to see little to no harm in poetry that does depict the gods as morally fallible. Plutarch, in How to Study Poetry, proposes to educate young readers of Homer so that they may derive benefit from poetry and not be harmed by its dangerous elements. He agrees with Socrates’ concerns in Republic, but he counsels active and resisting reading instead of avoidance or censorship.110 As an example of this method Plutarch suggests a moral reading of Demodocus’ song of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite. From the song students can learn that “bad deeds do not prosper,”111 and that “obscene songs” produce “wanton characters.”112 It is for the purpose of such moral lessons that students should read poetry. Plutarch ignores the laughter of the gods, either because it significantly complicates the scene, or because students sometimes did not read these particular verses.113 Second, in his comparison of Menander and Aristophanes, 107. Cf. Halliwell 1986, 231–­33. 108. Arist., Po. 1460B: ὅτι οὕτω φασίν, οἷον τὰ περὶ θεῶν˙ ἴσως γὰρ οὔτε βέλτιον οὕτω λέγειν οὔτ᾽ ἀληθῆ, ἀλλ᾽ εἰ ἔτυχεν ὥσπερ Ξενοφάνει˙ ἀλλ᾽ οὖν φασι. 109. See e.g., Arist., EN 1178B: the gods are active only in contemplation, displaying neither good nor bad behavior. 110. Konstan 2004; cf. Hunter 2009, 169–­88; Hunter and Russell 2011, 1–­17. 111. Plu., Aud. 19D: οὐκ ἀρετᾷ κακὰ ἔργα = Od. 8.329. 112. Plu., Aud. 19F–­20A: μουσικὴ φαύλη . . . ἀκόλαστα ἤθη. He alludes to the alleged wantonness of the Phaeacians. 113. The teacher may have skipped or even excised them. The gods laugh twice, at Od. 8.326

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Plutarch prefers the former, and one reason he gives (among many) is that Aristophanes does not distinguish between characters through specific styles of speaking. This makes it impossible to know whether “a farmer or a god” is talking.114 Plutarch is concerned here principally with the potential of each author for ethical education,115 but his remark may also illustrate an underlying unease with Aristophanes’ irreverent portrayal of the gods on stage. Plutarch diverges from Plato and Aristotle in shifting the burden from the poet to the reader. The problematic depiction of the gods in poetry is taken as fait accompli, and he does not think that these texts would be offensive to the gods. For Plutarch, ignoring poetry altogether would amount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The better solution is to adopt a critical reading method, which can transform potentially harmful mythical narratives into edifying material. Just like Plutarch, Maximus of Tyre attempts to reconcile a roughly Platonic understanding of the divine with an appreciation for Homer’s depiction of the gods. He responds directly to Socrates’ critique of poetry in Republic. Maximus proposes that real societies need Homeric poetry, because allegorical readings of Homer can disabuse people of their false ideas about the divine; in the ideal city of the Republic such false ideas do not exist, therefore Socrates has no need for Homer.116 But elsewhere Maximus takes a less conciliatory view: how can Plato criticize Homer, he asks, for telling of the “union of Ares and Aphrodite, the bonds of Hephaestus, the gods drinking and laughing unquenchable laughter,” when he himself uses enigmatic language to expend truth in the case of the stories of Socrates’ lovers?117 Homer and Plato actually do the same thing: both, says Maximus, intentionally use opaque language, which the reader has to deconstruct to reach hidden truths. Outside the context of his engagement with Plato, Maximus even praises Homer specifically for including laughter among the many types of activities he depicts among the gods.118 The debate, sowed by Xenophanes, between Plato’s Socrates on one side, and Aristotle, Plutarch, and Maximus on the other, illustrates the radicalism of the rejection of Homeric divine laughter in Republic. All three opponents and 343; the second instance is most scandalous, because the gods laugh at Hermes’ boast that he would like to be caught in flagrante with Aphrodite. Some ancient texts omit his remark, cf. Hunter 2009, 189; Hunter and Russell 2011, 108. 114. Plu., Comp. Ar. Men. 853D: εἰτ᾽ ἄγροικος εἴτε θεός. Only a summary of this text is extant, but there is no good reason to doubt that it goes back to a genuine text by Plutarch, cf. Hunter 2009, 78. In Quaest. Conv. 712B–­D one of the interlocutors also prefers Menander to Aristophanes, citing the difficulty of understanding Aristophanes and his lewd language, cf. Rosen 2016, 144–­47. 115. Hunter 2009, 84–­87. On laughter in Plutarch see Nikolaidis 2019. 116. Max. Tyr. 17.4; cf. Trapp 1997, 149–­56; Lauwers 2015, 202–­5. 117. Max. Tyr. 18.5: Ἄρεως καὶ Ἀφροδίτης συνουσία καὶ Ἡφαίστου δεσμά, καὶ θεοὶ πίνοντες καὶ γελῶντες θεοὶ ἄσβεστον γέλωτα. Cf. Pl., R. 388E–­389A, 390C with Trapp 1997, 156–­64. 118. Max. Tyr. 26.1.

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are conciliatory or laudatory toward the Homeric portrayal of the gods. Even Socrates’ criticism in Republic of the gods’ “unquenchable laughter” in the Iliad stems primarily from concerns about young men laughing vehemently, not from fears about the possibility of undermining religion. After considering several texts where one would expect to find, if anywhere, the idea that showing the gods as laughing, or inviting human laughter by featuring comic gods, might harm their authority or offend them, it appears that such a notion was foreign to ancient philosophical thought.119 To conclude this section I return to the laughter-­loving god of Lucian’s Fisherman, since this passage appears to allude to Socrates’ criticism in Republic. As I discussed, in Fisherman Diogenes defends the jokes of Aristophanes and Eupolis on the grounds that Dionysus is a “laughter-­lover”: the dramatists, unlike Parrhesiades, can appeal to the license of a festival.120 The word “laughter-­lover” (philogelōs), used by Socrates to describe what young men might become under the influence of the laughter of Homeric gods, is rare in ancient Greek,121 and Lucian knew Plato’s Republic very well.122 Having Diogenes use this line of verse that describes Dionysus as laughter-­lover, in order to defend mockery in comedy, completely reverses Socrates’ argument: instead of removing laughing gods from epic poetry to prevent humans from becoming laughter-­lovers,123 humans are encouraged to laugh at mockery in comedy because the god Dionysus is a laughter-­lover. But Lucian goes even further. In the remainder of Fisherman it becomes clear that Dionysus’ authorization, reserved by Diogenes exclusively for comedy, is expanded so as to include Lucian’s own performances: the laughter-­loving nature of the god(s) is implicitly used to justify the author’s comic depictions of the gods in his dialogues. In chapter 1, I argued that Fisherman can be considered programmatic, and that the debate concerning the performances of Parrhesiades narrated within extends to Lucian’s own performances of comic dialogues. In Fisherman Philosophy personified features as a defender of Parrhesiades’ jokes. Diogenes claims, in the passage cited in section 2 of this chapter, that Parrhesiades lacks 119. Another relevant passage, the Epicurean Velleius’ adoption of Xenophanes’ (anonymized) criticism of the epic gods (Cic., ND 1.42) omits the laughter and also focuses on the potentially harmful effect of such poetry on humans; on the Epicureans see further section 4 below. 120. Pisc. 25, quoted in full at n46 above. 121. Before Lucian (in addition to Pl., R. 388E) only: Arist., Rh. 1390A; Men., Dysc. 968; Plu., Sull. 30, Quaest. Conv. 726D. 122. Householder 1941, 34–­36; Pass 2016, specifically on Pisc. as responding to Pl., R., albeit in different sections. On the relation of Pisc. to Pl., Ap. see Whitmarsh 2001, 263–­64; cf. Peterson 2016, 195–­96. 123. By a sleight of hand Halliwell (2008, 4) makes philogelōtas refer both to the young men and to the gods in R. 388E, but this is inaccurate, and it obscures the direction of Socrates’ argument.

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the license of a festival (heortē), but Philosophy argues that the opposite is true. Heortē, as I mentioned, can refer to laughter and play within or outside a religious context. Diogenes thinks it only applies to religious festivals such as the Dionysia, while for Philosophy the performance itself qualifies.124 It has been suggested that Philosophy uses the word heortē to underline the literary setting of Parrhesiades’ jokes, which Diogenes fails to appreciate.125 On this reading Philosophy co-­opts the ritual license derived from Dionysus as laughter-­loving god by characterizing Lucianic performance as heortē, in order to legitimize the author’s comic treatment of philosophers, other humans, and gods. Parrhesiades reinforces Philosophy’s argument by using the gods’ reactions to depictions of them in the theater in his defense. If the organizers of the games order an actor to be flogged for not playing his part as Athena or Poseidon well, “surely the gods are not angry with them for allowing the floggers to beat someone who is wearing their mask and has put on their appearance,” says Parrhesiades.126 Philosophy and Parrhesiades claim that while gods understand actors’ being flogged as humiliation only of representations of themselves, Diogenes and the other philosophers, unlike the gods, cannot tell apart actual philosophers from their representations; they confuse literature for reality. In Republic Plato’s Socrates is worried about the influence of poetry on how people behave in real life. In Fisherman Philosophy and Parrhesiades pretend with concerted effort that the line between literature and reality, between imitation and authenticity, is easy to draw, thereby preserving the privilege of mockery without consequences for literary performance. But their confidence, as depicted by Lucian, is actually meant to encourage his audience to see through the facetiousness of this argument. Especially listeners or readers also familiar with Sale of Lives—­the piece that the philosophers in Fisherman in part are responding to—­would know how carefully Lucian embellishes the philosophers for sale with historical biographical details; this contradicts fully Parrhesiades’ claim in Fisherman that they were only sham imitators of Diogenes cum suis.127 The slippage in Fisherman between imitation and representation on stage is no coincidence: Lucian routinely frames the self-­fashioning of his contemporaries as playacting and uses the language of the theater to do so.128 The Greek gods by 124. Pisc. 14. 125. Rosen 2016, 147–­53; cf. Peterson 2019, 85–­86. In Symp. a symposium to celebrate a wedding is consistently referred to as heortē. 126. Pisc. 33: καὶ οὐ δή που ὀργίζονται αὐτοῖς ἐκεῖνοι, διότι τὸν περικείμενον αὐτῶν τὰ προσωπεῖα καὶ τὸ σχῆμα ἐνδεδυκότα. 127. Pisc. 37, cf. Harmon 1915, 449; 1921, 1. 128. Cf. Whitmarsh 2001, 263; Karavas 2005; Schmitz 2010; Lefebvre 2016. See also chapters 1 and 6.

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their very nature as anthropomorphic beings preempt straightforward delineations between real versions and instantiations, imitations, representations, interpretations, and so on. The point of theater is precisely to make audiences forget that an actor is playing Dionysus,129 just as Lucian’s performances work hard to bring the gods to life. The implication of Fisherman is that Lucianic performance does not need any license, be it ritual or artistic, for its mockery of philosophers and gods. Socrates’ radical position in Republic is rejected entirely: gods do laugh, even at comic representations of themselves, and so should humans, especially philosophers.

Divine Humanness Imagining the gods as laughing anthropomorphizes them in a physical and an ethical sense simultaneously: laughter is a bodily activity, it arouses pleasure, and can be an expression of either joy or anger. Laughter thus presupposes not only having a body but also being subject to emotions, and the capacity for (moral) evaluation; it is easy to understand why Aristotle famously concluded that laughter had to be beholden to humans alone of animals,130 and the attribution of laughter to the gods may well be the pinnacle of anthropomorphism. Xenophanes’ harsh criticism of the anthropomorphism of the gods of archaic epic started a development in which over the centuries several philosophical schools posited ever more abstract notions of the divine, like the Stoics’ all-­encompassing divine ordering principle and the Platonists’ benevolent, philanthropic, and infinitely good transcendent being. By the Hellenistic period these gods of philosophy had shed not only human form and faults, but also the susceptibility to emotions as such.131 However, especially in imperial Greek philosophy, many thinkers strove to reconcile their respective doctrinal positions on the gods with the traditional anthropomorphic interpretations of them in myth, ritual practices, and cult statues. A case in point is Dio’s Olympian Oration, delivered, most likely, at the foot of Pheidias’ statue of Zeus in Olympia.132 In this speech Dio conjures up the sculptor 129. At Anach. 23 Solon mildly mocks Anacharsis for thinking that theatergoers pity the actors performing the tragedy, and explains that they are moved, instead, by the suffering of the characters. 130. Arist., Part. an. 673A. 131. On the exemplarity of the divine in imperial philosophy see Athanassiadi and Macris 2013, 63–­65. For the Stoics specifically see Sedley 2002; Frede 2002, 95–­116; for the (middle) Platonists see Dillon 2002; Tarrant 2007, 463–­65; Boys-­Stones 2016. On the susceptibility of the ancient gods to emotions outside of philosophy see e.g., Griffin 1980, 179–­204; MacMullen 1981, 73–­94; Graziosi and Haubold 2005, 65–­66; Versnel 2011, 388–­91; Ahrensdorf 2014, 25–­72. 132. Russell 1992, 14–­16.

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himself to answer the kind of criticism a Stoic (like Dio) might hurl at him for depicting the gods in human form. The response that Dio has Pheidias give does not merely defend anthropomorphic cult statues, but actually argues that they are indispensable. Throughout, Pheidias is ambivalent about the likeness and unlikeness of his Zeus to the Zeus. Worshippers use “the human body” as “a vessel” and “a symbol” for the god, who is described as “intelligence,” and “reason,” as they seek to show what is “invisible and unrepresentable” by means of something “visible and representable.”133 The most important Greek terms in this passage are derived from the verb eikazō, which can mean both “to represent” and “to compare.” Pheidias immediately gets at the core of the issue: the problematic assumption that god is comparable rather than incomparable is a prerequisite for making a representation of him. In choosing the human form for a “vessel” Greeks at least do better, says Pheidias, than some “barbarians” who use animals—­an easy swipe at the Egyptians.134 Pheidias goes on to hold Homer responsible for pouring the gods not only into human form but also attributing human behaviors to them, and for going in the opposite direction as well: “He dared to compare Agamemnon to the most important parts of the god, his eyes and brow”; Pheidias’ statue, on the contrary, “not even a crazy person would compare to any mortal.”135 He also reminds his audience that they consider Homer “godlike with respect to his wisdom.”136 Paradoxically, Pheidias uses the precedent of Homeric epic to exonerate himself, yet also seeks to distance his work from it.137 Dio’s Pheidias in the Olympian Oration recounts how his representation of god is markedly less anthropomorphic and more Stoic than its Homeric models. He claims that his statue embodies a dazzling array of Zeus’ epithets, by representing the god as kind, good, wise, provident, a giver of goods, philanthropic, and so forth. He motivates the inclusion of these characteristics through the notion of exemplarity: showing Zeus as god of strangers, for instance, reminds humans to be hospitable.138 Zeus’ irascible and violent side, when he sends thunder or war, has been omitted, because sculpture, unlike poetry, is unable 133. D. Chr. 12.59: ἀνθρώπινον σῶμα ὡς ἀγγεῖον φρονήσεως καὶ λόγου θεῷ προσάπτοντες, ἐνδείᾳ καὶ ἀπορίᾳ παραδείγματος τῷ φανερῷ τε καὶ εἰκαστῷ τὸ ἀνείκαστον καὶ ἀφανὲς ἐνδείκνυσθαι ζητοῦντες, συμβόλου δυνάμει χρώμενοι. Text follows Russell 1992. For Dio on divine anthropomorphism cf. 4.85. 134. D. Chr. 12.59; cf. Russell 1992, 199; Klauck 2000, 142. 135. D. Chr. 12.62–­63: ἐτόλμησεν Ἀγαμέμνονα προσεικάσαι τοῦ θεοῦ τοῖς κυριωτάτοις μέρεσιν εἰπών, ὄμματα καὶ κεφαλὴν ἴκελος Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ [= Il. 2.478]. τὸ δέ γε τῆς ἐμῆς ἐργασίας οὐκ ἄν τις οὐδὲ μανείς {τινι} ἀφομοιώσειεν οὐδενὶ θνητῷ. 136. D. Chr. 12.63: τοῦ δόξαντος ὑμῖν ἰσοθέου τὴν σοφίαν. 137. Cf. Zeitlin 2001, 221–­23. 138. D. Chr. 12.74–­77. On philanthrōpia as a divine attribute in imperial Greek thought see Parker 2016, 76.

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to represent such behavior, Pheidias claims.139 But, adds the sculptor, “even if it were possible, I would not want to do it.”140 Pheidias’ arguments as to why he can sculpt Zeus’ philanthropy but not his wrath are rather unconvincing, and, by having him add this remark, Dio appears to acknowledge as much: the real reason, of course, is that the Stoic Zeus cannot be responsible for true evil. Pheidias concludes by calling himself the best sculptor who has ever lived, though he adds that “to Zeus, who made the entire kosmos, no mortal must be compared.”141 Dio concludes the oration by conjuring Zeus himself, who approves of the festivities put on in his honor, but also appears to mock the condition of Roman Greece. Zeus recites two lines that the still disguised Odysseus speaks to his father in Ithaca toward the end of the Iliad, in which he calls him old and unkempt, and in the poem this is described as “testing him with teasing and abuse.”142 In the context of Dio’s Olympian Oration the lines typically have been interpreted as alluding to Greece’s political situation under Rome.143 By engaging in this somewhat mean behavior, Dio’s Zeus shows himself to have a greater tolerance for the moral ambivalence of the Homeric portrayal of the gods than Dio’s Pheidias. Pheidias’ statue of Zeus has human form, yet cannot be compared to a mortal. It is daring to compare Agamemnon to Zeus, but Homer was “godlike.” The Zeus statue inspires human emulation of divine virtue, but no mortal must be compared to the god. Tensions such as these show how, in a whimsical tone, Dio’s Olympian Oration lays bare the difficulty of its own agenda of reconciling the de-­anthropomorphized Stoic divine with setting up cult statues (and other religious practices). Although the divine properly speaking is invisible, incomparable, and unrepresentable, humans all need recognizable “vessels” in order to contemplate, worship, and emulate the gods.144 Pheidias’ statue of Zeus, Dio acknowledges, as a stone object remains truly unworthy of the god (Or. 12.80), yet in its imaginative embodiment of divine virtue it is so far removed from human nature as to be incomparable to mortals. Dio’s project is emblematic of the efforts of imperial Greek thinkers to retain ethical and physical anthropomorphism for the gods, while also credit139. D. Chr. 12.78–­79. 140. D. Chr. 12.78: οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ παρὸν ἠθέλησά γ᾽ ἄν ποτε. 141. D. Chr. 12.83: αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ Διί, δημιουργοῦντι τὸν ἅπαντα κόσμον, οὐ χρὴ ξυμβάλλειν οὐδένα θνητόν. 142. Od. 24.240: πρῶτον κερτομίοις ἐπέεσσιν πειρηθῆναι. Translation Wilson 2018, 514. Zeus’ Homeric quotation is adapted from Od. 24.249–­50, cf. D. Chr. 12.85. 143. Russell 1992, 211; Swain 1996, 201–­2; Klauck 2000, 158–­59. 144. Klauck (2000, 212–­13) argues that for Dio only “the masses” need statues, but this is directly contradicted by 12.60–­61; cf. Betz 2004; Stenger 2009.

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ing them with guiding the universe in a provident, just, and calm manner. Even the Epicureans, although they do not accept any form of divine agency in the human realm and adopted Xenophanes’ criticism of the gods of epic, adhere to physical anthropomorphism. The ephemeral gods in the intermundia still look like humans, and Diogenes of Oenoanda, much like Dio, advocates for setting up statues of the gods with “cheerful, smiling” faces.145 The nature of the gods—­their humanness, their philanthropy, their exemplarity—­was an ongoing problem for Lucian and his contemporaries. Even if most of the arguments being exchanged were far from new by the second century CE, the questions themselves remained unresolved and therefore pertinent.146 The cultural significance of Homeric poetry played a large role in promoting the preservation, reappropriation, and allegorization of the gods of epic and their stories,147 and, as Dio acknowledges, worshippers have a profound need to see themselves in the gods in order to feel close to them and be able to follow their good example. The gods of imperial Greek philosophy are intrinsically free from fault, therefore worthy of our emulation, and, in order to facilitate such emulation, must seem familiar to us. They must be human, but not too human.

Conclusion Although in Fisherman Lucian plays with the possibility of appropriating the ritual license of Old Comedy for his own performances, ultimately, he does not need it in order to laugh with the gods—­nor did Aristophanes and the other dramatists for that matter. In their ability to laugh at others and take a joke at their own expense, the gods show their real nature: because their power and authority are immanent to the human world, larger than human faculties but not incommensurably so, human laughter does not pierce them. Lesky and Marx imagine divinity as something solemn and transcendent, which laughter can pop like a balloon in an instant. To say that in the context of ancient reli145. Diog. Oen. F 19 = NF 115 II.6–­8: δεῖ δ᾽ ἱλαρὰ τῶν θεῶν ποιεῖν ξόανα καὶ μειδιῶντα. Text from Smith 1996. On the gods’ form in Epicureanism see also Diog. Oen. F 20 (discussed in chapter 5) and Cic., ND 1.42–­49, cf. Mackey 2006. 146. See e.g., Ps.-­Longin., Subl. 9.7 for a first-­century CE critique of Homer for making “men in the Iliad gods and the gods men” and giving the gods “eternal misfortune” (τοὺς μὲν ἐπὶ τῶν Ἰλιακῶν ἀνθρώπους . . . θεοὺς πεποιηκέναι, τοὺς θεοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους . . . τῶν θεῶν . . . τὴν ἀτυχίαν ἐποίησεν αἰώνιον, text from Russell 1964). Cf. Russell 1964, xxii–­xxix, 91–­92. In the Greek novel human protagonists are assimilated to the gods both explicitly and implicitly, through the use of epiphanic language, Zeitlin 2008, 100–­101; Cioffi 2014. See also chapter 4 on erotic desire and divine anthropomorphism. 147. Kim 2010.

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gion laughter was not desacralizing means both that laughter was accommodated to such an extent as to actually be a constituent of some ritual practices, and, second, that the gods of ancient religion were imagined to either reciprocate or retaliate human laughter, but never to be deflated by it. In the development from the fully realized ethical and physical anthropomorphism of the gods in archaic epic to the abstract divine of imperial philosophical theology one would expect their humanness, and accordingly their amenability and resilience to laughter in all its forms, to have diminished radically. But it seems that this is not what happened. First, the hold of philosophical theology over everyday ritual practices and private religious beliefs of worshippers was of course limited. Additionally, Dio’s Olympian Oration illustrates how even thinkers who were steeped in philosophical thought regarding the divine argued to retain and employ anthropomorphizing modes of engagement with god(s), such as cult statues. This helps explain why up until and during Lucian’s time we do not encounter the idea that showing the gods as laughing, or inviting human laughter by featuring comic gods, might harm their authority or offend them. Although Aristides and Plutarch do think that ritual laughter cannot please the gods, any adverse consequences of it touch humans only. In his dialogues Lucian features the gods as comic characters. As discussed in the Introduction, the fact that the gods take part in his humorous performances does not necessarily mean that they are the butt of the joke; in the coming chapters we will see that frequently Lucian’s real targets do not reside on Mount Olympus. Lucian is able to employ the gods in this way, precisely because for his audiences laughing at comic representations of the gods was not antithetical to worshipping them. His contemporaries would have been accustomed to approaching the gods and depictions of them with laughter inside and outside ritual. Precisely the gods’ persistently anthropomorphic nature means that (shared) laughter can be a mode of communication with them, something that brings them closer to us rather than killing them.148 Finally, the complexity of the gods’ anthropomorphism as it relates to ritual practices, on the one hand, and to philosophical theology on the other, is a major target of Lucian’s humor in its own right. In addition to challenging the theodicy of good fortune espoused by Stoics and Platonists, he also exposes the seams in their welding together of the recognizably human gods of epic with philanthropic and exemplary divinities. By comparing Lucian with authors like Dio and Maximus it becomes clear that he is engaging them on their own terms. Philosophy had 148. Cf. Burkert (2003a [1982], 114) with respect to Il.: “In [the laughter of the gods] humans can recognize the gods as familiar, as equals. . . . This brings about a mirroring effect, which makes the gods more human, and humans more divine.”

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not truly left anthropomorphism behind, and Lucian takes full advantage. With ritual practices like sacrifice a lot is at stake in precisely how human the gods are thought to be: how the gods are expected to receive sacrificial offerings, how much the size of them matters, and so on. In the next chapter we will see that, while his contemporaries often attempt to smooth over the contradictions of sacrifice, Lucian goes in the opposite direction. As Burkert already noted: “What a host of problems it presents for speculative imagination, and what opportunities for a satirist such as Lucian!”149

149. Burkert 2001a [1991], 85.

CHAPTER 3 ❦

Rituals Sacrificing to Hungry Gods

Animal sacrifice for the gods has been central to modern discussions of ancient religion thanks in large part to the work of early anthropologists, the Cambridge Ritualists, and their critics.1 Making offerings to the gods of material goods in some shape or form, including animal sacrifice, was a constant feature of religious practice throughout the Mediterranean. The leading ancient historians of the twentieth century sought to explain animal sacrifice as such through one central, unifying idea. For Burkert animal sacrifice was a means of exorcizing violence from human society. Structuralists argued that the sacrificial feast defined the relationships and distinctions between men and gods, and between men and animals. Recently, scholars have moved away from these overarching theories, and they prefer to focus on the polyvalent nature of sacrifice instead.2 Studies of sacrifice now emphasize the great variety both of sacrificial practices and of meanings attributed to them by their participants, depending on geography, time period, cultural context, or individual preference.3 The plurality of modern interpretations of ancient sacrifice mirrors the fact that the ancients also struggled to disentangle the ritual’s inherent tensions and complexities. Rather than trying to resolve these, Lucian relishes the complexities, and puts them under a comic magnifying glass. The dominant scholarly narrative about animal sacrifice in Lucian’s life1. Good overviews of the history of the study of sacrifice are Bremmer 2007a, 141–­43; Knust and Várhelyi 2011, 3–­31; Graf 2012; Lincoln 2012, 13–­31; Naiden 2013, 4–­15. 2. Burkert 1983 [1972], 45. Structuralists: Vernant 1989a [1979]; 1989b [1979]; Detienne 1989 [1979]. Criticisms: e.g., Parker 2011, 129–­32; Georgoudi 2005; Bremmer 2007a, 143–­44; Graf 2012; Naiden 2015, 465–­67. 3. See e.g., Ekroth’s (2002) work on sacrifice in hero cult, the diverse contributions in the volume of Knust and Várhelyi (2011), or Schörner (2019) on the openness of interpreting sacrifice indicated by the heterogeneity of visual representations of it.

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time used to be one of decline: alongside traditional religious practice overall, animal sacrifice was thought to have become less important in society and much less frequent.4 Conversely, as the continued vitality of Greek and Roman cult practices in the first and second centuries CE has progressively come to the fore since the 1980s, it is now accepted that sacrificial rituals continued to be a prominent feature of everyday life too.5 Using descriptions by Plutarch and Pausanias of sacrifices happening in their time, as well as Greek inscriptions from the period, Petropoulou has shown that in the Greek-­speaking Roman East animal sacrifice was still a widespread, common practice in the first and second centuries CE, both in the cities and in the countryside.6 The persistence of animal sacrifice was bolstered by large-­scale civic sacrifices as a form of euergetism, and by the sacrifices that were part of the imperial cult.7 Only from the third century CE onward is there a steady decline in the popularity of sacrifice, and even after the interdiction of the 390s sacrifices were still performed.8 In this chapter I consider Lucian’s comic treatment of animal sacrifice: the topic is at the forefront of four Lucianic pieces (On Sacrifices, Prometheus, Tragic Zeus, and Icaromenippus), while being referenced tangentially in many more of his works. Scholars have traditionally viewed Lucian’s treatment of sacrifice as clear-­cut criticism. The author, allegedly, considered it a primitive and antiquated practice, and this, in turn, has been a major argument for attributing atheist or at least religiously skeptic views to Lucian.9 Additionally, the seemingly divergent approaches to sacrifice in Lucian’s pieces have sparked confusion.10 Lucian’s comic treatment of animal sacrifice coincides with its continued prominent role in daily life, and with its “becoming invested with greater cultural significance than it had in earlier times.”11 This cultural significance is particularly evident in philosophical discussions of animal sacrifice by Lucian’s contemporaries Maximus of Tyre and Celsus, and in authors writing just before him, like Apollonius of Tyana, Plutarch, and Dio Chrysostom.12 The emerging   4. See esp. Nilsson 1945.   5. MacMullen 1981, 34–­48. On the vitality of religion in Lucian’s time see also the Introduction.   6. Petropoulou 2008, 32–­111. On sacrifice in Greek imperial literature see Pernot 2005.   7. Euergetism: Zuiderhoek 2009, 1–­36. Sacrifice in imperial cult: Price 1984, 209–­20; cf. Chaniotis 2003, 10–­11. On the role of the emperor as sacrificer see Gordon 1990b, 202–­19.   8. Intense debates about sacrifice in late antiquity attest to its continued importance: e.g., Porph., Abst.; Sym., Ep.; Lib., Or. 30. Sacrifices still occur under Justinian. Before his reign the ban was not rigorously enforced, MacMullen 1997, 42–­45; Stroumsa 2009 [2005], 56–­83; Cameron 2011, 59–­74; Jones 2014, 61–­77.   9. E.g., Caster 1937, 269–­73; Pernot 2005, 323–­24; Belayche 2011. 10. E.g., Graf 2011, 205. 11. Rives 2011, 197. 12. Rives 2011, 195–­97; Graf 2011, 206–­10.

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debate among Christian intellectuals about animal sacrifice may also have been part of Lucian’s framework of reference.13 Although other meanings and purposes—­having nice food, strengthening group ties, or providing a rhythm to daily life—­may have been equally or more relevant, depending on the specific circumstances and occasion, in this chapter I concentrate on one particular function of ritual sacrifice, namely attempting communication with the gods.14 That sacrifice was felt to perform this interactive task by its practitioners entails, in fact, a major presupposition: “Any sort of supernatural power might like a gift, but the only way of knowing what gift a supernatural power likes is to presuppose that the supernatural power shares the likings of the giver. Sacrifice is built upon the assumption that gods are like humans.”15 Anthropomorphism, then, is embedded right at the core of the ritual of sacrifice. Lucian’s treatment of sacrifice is an integral part of his satirical response to the complex ways in which his contemporaries dealt with the divine anthropomorphism of ancient religion, which I discussed in the last chapter. Additionally, he continuously engages first-­and second-­century CE debates about animal sacrifice, depicting the practice in different ways in his respective works in order to approach the topic from different angles. There is nothing in Lucian’s humor about sacrifice that is necessarily irreconcilable with continued adherence to the ritual practice. The gods feature as comic characters and he uses them and other interlocutors to offer a lively exploration of similar questions that were being asked about sacrifice by philosophers and orators at the time. Instead of trying to diminish the contradictions inherent to this ritual, Lucian homes in on them. He thereby simultaneously participates in and satirizes the ongoing philosophical discourse on sacrifice. Lucian’s humor may well have caused audience members to interrogate their attitudes toward the ritual, whether for the first time or more insistently than before, but the questions he asks through his comedy do not in and of themselves undermine it.16 Lucian does seek to undermine the pretense that the rationale for the phenomenon of feeding immortal gods is straightforward or self-­evident. 13. Nasrallah 2011, 150; Bozia 2014, 106. See Bremmer (2021, with additional bibliography at 421–­22n79) for Lucian’s knowledgeability about Christians and their writings. On the influences of polytheist discourse on Christian discourse and vice versa with respect to sacrifice see Eckhardt 2014; on the latter specifically see Ullucci 2011a, 65–­136. 14. Parker 2011, 132–­44; cf. Naiden 2013, 3–­4. 15. Osborne 2016, 248. 16. Ullucci (2011b) illustrates the general possibility of discussing the meaning and purpose of sacrifice without questioning it. Elsewhere (2011a, 54) he adds that “ancient Mediterraneans were not blind to the various logical tensions and philosophical conundrums inherent in their own religious practices,” and “Lucian could play with these tensions to comic effect,” which “does not represent a direct attack on the practice of sacrifice.”

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The Lucianic dialogue Prometheus contains a brief treatment of animal sacrifice that is emblematic of the author’s approach. The piece, which bears a significant thematic similarity to the tragedy Prometheus Bound,17 features Prometheus and Hermes waiting for the eagle to arrive and commence his gruesome torture. Prometheus asks for a trial. Hermes responds that there is no point in having one, but allows Prometheus to make a speech as a way to pass the time (Prom. 4). Prometheus opens his defense speech with the charge “about the meat” (Prom. 7), corresponding to Hermes’ mentioning this charge first (Prom. 3). Prometheus defends himself by recasting his deception of Zeus with the unequal portions of meat as a practical joke, a prank suitable to the merriment and jesting of the symposium. Zeus’ response, argues Prometheus, was entirely disproportionate and quite unexpected: I did not think that Zeus would remember the whole thing even the next day, let alone be so upset about such things and feel like he had suffered great wrongs, just because someone serving meat played some joke to test whether the chooser would recognize the better portion. . . . Look, does not all this expose the angry one’s great pettiness and base spirit, and how prone he is to rage?18 Hermes specifically quoted Hesiod’s aetiological Mekone narrative from Theogony in his summary of the charges (Prom. 3), and Prometheus’ defense likewise is steeped in Hesiodic reception.19 He frames his action as “a joke,” but in the same breath describes it as a test of the chooser’s perceptiveness. Prometheus’ glib belittling of the primordial offering of bones and fat to the father of the gods in fact engages the core theological problems of the episode. Did Zeus know he was being tricked? If so, why did he choose the wrong piece?20 Prometheus goes on to compare Zeus’ behavior negatively to human behavior. One would expect humans to be more prone to anger than the gods, but in fact they are much more lenient when, for instance, their cook filches a sip of soup or a little bit of meat (Prom. 9). Prometheus’ juxtaposition draws attention to the theme of the justice and injustice of Zeus in Theogony, and in the Mekone 17. Cf. Karavas 2005, 182–­85; contra Berdozzo 2011, 141–­44. 18. Prom. 8–­9: ὥστε ἔγωγε οὐδὲ μνημονεύσειν εἰς τὴν ὑστεραίαν ἔτι ᾤμην τούτων τὸν Δία, οὐχ ὅπως καὶ τηλικαῦτα ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἀγανακτήσειν καὶ πάνδεινα ἡγήσεσθαι πεπονθέναι, εἰ διανέμων τις κρέα παιδιάν τινα ἔπαιξε πειρώμενος εἰ διαγνώσεται τὸ βέλτιον ὁ αἱρούμενος . . . ὅρα γὰρ μὴ πολλήν τινα ταῦτα κατηγορῇ τοῦ ἀγανακτοῦντος αὐτοῦ μικροψυχίαν καὶ ἀγέννειαν τῆς γνώμης καὶ πρὸς ὀργὴν εὐχέρειαν. 19. Cf. Hes., Th. 535–­64. In Prom. es Lucian models his composition of comic dialogue on Prometheus at Mekone, see chapter 1. 20. On these issues see Wecowski 2012; Stocking 2017, 27–­68.

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episode in particular.21 Lucian wittily probes the oddity of adopting this story as an aition for sacrifice; it implies that by sacrificing thighbones wrapped in fat humans are stealing from the gods, and shows how the first sacrifice mightily angered Zeus, setting in motion a sequence of events disastrous for humans. Prometheus’ telling of the story underlines Zeus’ interest in sacrifice as food, and his keen attention to the size and form of offerings. Lucian comically brings to the fore the anthropomorphizing assumptions underlying sacrifice. On the whole, the human practice of animal sacrifice appears as a dangerous gamble: a necessary gift to irascible, unpredictable gods. In the first section of this chapter I consider the extreme fantasy of a cessation of sacrifices in Icaromenippus and Tragic Zeus, which Lucian borrowed from Aristophanes’ sacrificial strikes. I argue that for Lucian this comic fantasy is an alternative tool for investigating the difficult philosophical issue of what our gifts mean to the gods. In the second part I focus on On Sacrifices, which addresses hard questions about the mechanics of ancient animal sacrifice, such as the transfer of goods from humans to gods, the size of sacrifices, and their preferred contents. Lucian’s inquiry into sacrifice occurs on two planes, as he asks both what it means to perform this ritual at all, and, second, what it means to perform it in the specific ways in which one is supposed to. Making a good sacrifice was not an easy task, especially not for those of modest means. The author’s account of sacrifice contributes to his larger agenda of social criticism, which takes aim at the elitist ideology of what Weber would later call the theodicy of good fortune. The notion that those who are prosperous must be divinely favored and therefore deserve to prosper, would be illustrated for all to see by the simple fact that the prosperous are able to offer large sacrifices. With his comic and critical depiction of the sociocultural phenomenon of sacrifice, Lucian sought to dismantle this way of thinking. He did so, as I argued in chapter 1, in front of a live audience containing many individuals of modest means for whom contributing to the practice of offering animal sacrifice would be a major expense, or perhaps out of reach entirely.

Sacrifice on Strike What would happen if humans went on strike and stopped making sacrifices to the gods altogether? In Lucian’s dialogues Zeus asks and answers this question—­it would be a disaster!—­on two occasions. Scholars have interpreted 21. Cf. Strauss Clay 2016.

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Zeus’ fear of a sacrificial strike in Icaromenippus and Tragic Zeus as a simple attack from Lucian on sacrifice and on ancient religion generally,22 but in fact the scenarios of sacrificial strike in these texts have a whole range of implications. Criticism of sacrifice is one possibility, but audiences could also have understood the fantasy of a sacrificial strike as confirming the importance and efficacy of the ritual. In Lucian’s Icaromenippus the protagonist Menippus,23 dissatisfied with the teachings of the philosophers, goes up to the heavens to find out the truth about the gods and the universe for himself. The gods admit him to their assembly, and he listens to Zeus giving a speech. It is a diatribe against the philosophers, whose influence Zeus fears greatly. Menippus quotes a small section from Zeus’ speech: It is therefore high time for you to realize that if they [the Epicureans] ever are able to persuade the world you will go uncommonly hungry. For who would sacrifice to you thinking that he had nothing to gain by it?24 The Epicureans, as Zeus knows, teach that because of their tranquility (ataraxia) the gods are not affected positively or negatively by anything on earth, rendering sacrifices useless.25 Zeus presents sacrifice as a quid pro quo business transaction. If humans believe that the Epicureans are right, and that they receive nothing in return if they ask the gods for something by means of a sacrifice, they will stop making offerings. Zeus considers the smoke of the sacrifices as food: without it the gods will go hungry. I will return to the larger issue of what the gods stand to gain by sacrifices, but for now we should note the comic absurdity of the idea that Zeus and the other gods would starve if humans did not feed them. In Tragic Zeus Zeus expresses his worries about the influence of the philosophers and the effect it might have on sacrificial practice again. In the first half of the dialogue Zeus relates to the other gods an argument that he has overheard, between an Epicurean (Damis) and a defender of divine providence 22. E.g., Coenen 1977, 34; Caster 1937, 205. 23. Icar. has been argued to show greater or lesser Menippean influence, on account of the protagonist and the ascent to heaven which inverts Menippus’ Necyia. Great influence: Helm 1906, 80–­114; little influence: McCarthy 1934, 51–­53; moderate influence: Relihan 1993, 104–­16. Billault (2006) and Camerotto (2009, 14–­24) focus, instead, on connections with Ar., Pax. 24. Icar. 32: ὥστε ὥρα ὑμῖν λογίζεσθαι διότι ἢν ἅπαξ οὗτοι πεῖσαι τὸν βίον δυνηθῶσιν, οὐ μετρίως πεινήσετε. τίς γὰρ ἂν ἔτι θύσειεν ὑμῖν πλέον οὐδὲν ἕξειν προσδοκῶν; 25. Cf. Van Nuffelen 2011, 190–­94.

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(Timocles). Since the Epicurean had the upper hand in the debate, Zeus ended the conversation by making night fall early. While the gods are arguing among each other about what they should do, a report comes in that the same philosophers have resumed their debate. The second half of the dialogue is taken up by this debate, with the gods listening in and commenting from up on high. Zeus’ warning about the possibility of a sacrificial strike is part of his report about the first conversation of Damis and Timocles. His sentiment is similar to what he says in Icaromenippus, but here the god goes into much greater detail about what a strike would mean for himself and the other inhabitants of Olympus: That is why I have called you together, gods, and it is not an insignificant reason, if you consider that all our honor, reputation, and income come from men. But if they are convinced that either the gods do not exist at all or that they have no care for men, there will be no burnt sacrifices, no gifts, and no honors from the earth, and we will sit idly in heaven in the grip of famine, bereft of those feasts of ours, of celebrations, games, burnt sacrifices, vigils, and processions.26 The god’s uncertainty as to whether the Epicureans went even further than the doctrine of divine ataraxia, and were in fact atheists, reflects ongoing debates.27 Zeus sketches a convoluted picture of what sacrifices mean for the gods: in general, they receive honor (timē), reputation (doxa), and income (prosodos) from humans. It seems that the gods stand to lose all this, if the Epicureans win the day. Zeus continues to give a long list of rituals that the gods will have to do without, but it does not become clear which specific rituals bring honor, reputation, or income, respectively. The juxtaposition of the term prosodos with the elevated concepts honor and reputation calls to mind Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro.28 There Socrates first proposes that sacrifice is “some kind of commercial trade” (technē emporikē), but Euthyphro counters that it is “honor” (timē).29 Both prosodos and emporikē have economic connotations, and Zeus’ placing 26. I. trag. 18: ταῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ὑμᾶς συνεκάλεσα, οὐ μικρά, ὦ θεοί, εἰ λογίσεσθε ὡς ἡ πᾶσα μὲν ἡμῖν τιμὴ καὶ δόξα καὶ πρόσοδος οἱ ἄνθρωποί εἰσιν˙ εἰ δ᾽ οὗτοι πεισθεῖεν ἢ μηδὲ ὅλως θεοὺς εἶναι ἢ ὄντας ἀπρονοήτους εἶναι σφῶν αὐτῶν, ἄθυτα καὶ ἀγέραστα καὶ ἄτιμα ἡμῖν ἔσται τὰ ἐκ γῆς καὶ μάτην ἐν οὐρανῷ καθεδούμεθα λιμῷ ἐχόμενοι, ἑορτῶν ἐκείνων καὶ πανηγύρεων καὶ ἀγώνων καὶ θυσιῶν καὶ παννυχίδων καὶ πομπῶν στερόμενοι. Compare also Bis acc. 2, where Zeus fears “great hunger” (λιμὸς πολύς) for the gods if the Epicureans convince people to stop making offerings. 27. Cf. Berdozzo 2011, 138–­39. 28. πρόσοδος might be a pun: it can mean either “procession” or “income,” though the latter is clearly meant here, cf. Coenen 1977, 73. 29. Pl., Euthphr. 14E–­15A. The passage will be discussed in more detail in the next section.

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prosodos third in the tricolon suggests that the tangible product of sacrifice matters to him most. Lucian presents Zeus as being worried primarily about losing the material yield from the rituals of humans. In a highly ironic inversion of Epicurean doctrine the god also seems to fear that he will be bored if humans no longer require his assistance. Yet, the biggest problem remains that the gods will go hungry if humans stop feeding them through sacrifice. Zeus’ interest in food is corroborated at several moments in both texts. He complains in Icaromenippus that “nowadays” people sacrifice to him just once every four years at Olympia, clearly referring to the festival before the Olympic games. According to Lucian’s contemporary Pausanias, though, sacrifices were still made at all the altars at Olympia once a month, so Zeus is being rather unfair.30 In Tragic Zeus Zeus complains about the “stinginess” (mikrologia) of one Mnesitheus, who had promised “whole hecatombs” when his ship was in distress at sea. After safely reaching land, however, Mnesitheus opportunistically forgot the vow he made, and did not hold up his end of the sacrificial bargain. Zeus is dismayed: “He feasted twelve gods by sacrificing just one cock, an old, wheezy one at that, and four very moldy lumps of frankincense. They went out on the coals immediately, and did not give off enough smoke to smell even with the tip of your nose.”31 Lucian depicts Zeus’ disappointment so vividly, that one can easily picture him sticking out his nose from heaven in vain. The god is angry not at the lack of honor in the sacrifice but at being left with an empty stomach, or rather, an empty nose. We actually find the precise inverse of this image in the piece Timon, where Zeus speaks fondly of the eponymous protagonist’s sacrifices, saying: “I have the smoke from them still in my nose!”32 Lucian also depicts the gods collectively as gluttons in Tragic Zeus. At the beginning of the assembly they shout: “Portions! Where is the nectar? The ambrosia is all gone! Where are the hecatombs? Victims in common!”33 The outsider god Momus says that receiving sacrifices is the only thing the gods 30. Icar. 24, with Paus. 5.15.10. For sacrifices at Olympia compare also Tim. 4. 31. I. trag. 15: ὃς ἑκκαίδεκα θεοὺς ἑστιῶν ἀλεκτρυόνα μόνον κατέθυσε, γέροντα κἀκεῖνον ἤδη καὶ κορυζῶντα, καὶ λιβανωτοῦ χόνδρους τέτταρας εὖ μάλα εὐρωτιῶντας, ὡς αὐτίκα ἐπισβεσθῆναι τῷ ἄνθρακι, μηδὲ ὅσον ἄκρᾳ τῇ ῥινὶ ὀσφραίνεσθαι τοῦ καπνοῦ παρασχόντας. Compare Ar., Av. 879–­94, where Peisetaerus tells the priest to stop invoking more bird-­gods, because the sacrificial goat will be too small for all of them to share. On this sacrifice see also in this section below. 32. Tim. 9: ἔτι γοῦν ἐν ταῖς ῥισὶ τὴν κνῖσαν αὐτῶν ἔχω. On this piece see further section 2 in this chapter. 33. I. trag. 13: διανομάς. ποῦ τὸ νέκταρ; ἡ ἀμβροσία ἐπέλιπε. ποῦ αἱ ἑκατόμβαι; κοινὰς τὰς θυσίας.

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care about.34 Damis, finally, jokes that the gods go off to eat with the Ethiopians “constantly” (sunechōs), and sometimes even “self-­invited” (autepaggeltoi).35 The gods worry anxiously about getting their portions, whether from humans (sacrifices) or their own food (ambrosia). The absence or insufficiency of sacrificial offerings makes them hungry, and just the threat of an end to sacrifice makes them angry. Icaromenippus and Tragic Zeus both show the gods as they contemplate the consequences of a sacrificial strike, which they fear might be brought about by philosophers’ spreading doubts about the existence of divine providence. Lucian uses the gods’ fears to present in excruciating detail one possible answer to the question of what sacrifice means to them, namely that our sacrifices constitute their sustenance, which means they would go “uncommonly hungry” if humans were to stop making offerings. This answer makes literal the presupposition of sacrifice spelled out above in the introduction to this chapter: in offering foodstuffs to the gods, we are assuming that they like the same things as us humans. Imagining that they, too, would go hungry without food is merely the next logical step. The most important model for the sacrificial strikes in Lucian, and for his humor about sacrifices broadly, is Aristophanes.36 Sacrifice as an expression of the complex relationship between gods and men features prominently in three of his plays: Birds, Wealth, and Peace. As with Lucian, scholars have viewed these comic representations of sacrifice as marks of impiety, in spite of the ritual context of the plays.37 In Birds and Wealth the situation differs somewhat from the sacrificial strikes in Lucian: in Aristophanes the gods are already suffering from the consequences of a strike, not merely imagining them. At the same time, the scenario that Lucian’s Zeus envisions is more radical because it does not posit a replacement of offerings for one set of gods with sacrifices for a different set of gods, as in Aristophanes, but a complete cessation of sacrifice as a practice. Ultimately, both Aristophanes and Lucian probe the meaning of sacrifice for the gods by staging (in the case of the former) or anticipating (in the case of the 34. I. trag. 22; echoing perhaps Pl., Smp. 190C, where Aristophanes has the gods decide not to annihilate men in order that they will continue to receive sacrifices. On Lucian and Plato see chapter 2; on Momus in I. trag. see chapter 5. 35. I. trag. 37; an allusion to the gods’ twelve-­day feast with the Ethiopians from Il. 1.423–­25. Damis portrays the gods as parasites, which recalls Antiphanes F 252 (= Ath. 1.14): it is “the life of the gods” (βίος θεῶν) to be able to “eat the food of others without adding up” (τἀλλότρια δειπνεῖν, μὴ προσέχων λογίσμασι), cf. Wilkins 2000, 72. 36. Cf. Coenen 1977, 72–­73; Bowie 2007, 36; Branham 1989a, 173. 37. Nilsson 1948, 77–­78; Scullion 2014, 348; Whitmarsh 2015, 113–­14; contra Barrenechea (2018, 180), who interprets Plut. as an intertwining of “comic and religious incongruities”; and Chepel (2020, 186), who argues that Aristophanes’ approach to sacrifice “reflects (and relieves) the anxiety of the Greeks about the outcome of the sacrificial ritual.”

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latter) its negation. By appealing to the existing plot of sacrificial strike, which could have been familiar to some of his audience members, Lucian anchors his own response to the second-­century CE debate about sacrifice in a long comic tradition of hungry gods.38 Among Aristophanes’ plays Birds provides the fullest expression of the fantasy of a cessation of sacrifices. The comic hero of the play, Peisetaerus, first mentions the possibility of withholding sacrifice from the gods when he is trying to convince Tereus to participate in his plan for a bird-­polis. He tells him that they should make the gods pay taxes on the sacrifices from humans. If the gods do not pay, the birds can “stop the smell of roasting thigh bones.”39 Once Peisetaerus is installed as ruler he orders that a wall be built encircling the air, asks Zeus to resign his rule, and sends a herald down to inform the people on earth about the tax.40 Once the wall has been built, Peisetaerus preemptively puts the blockade into effect pending Zeus’ surrender of power. The consequences become clear immediately. Zeus sends Iris to earth to ask humans to “make offerings to the Olympian gods, sacrifice some sheep, and fill the streets with the smell of meat burning in the sacrificial hearths.”41 The gods are smarting under the cessation of sacrifice, humbly asking only for some sheep rather than, for instance, a hecatomb. Iris uses three different verbs to describe the act of sacrifice, and goes into great detail, suggesting that she herself is quite hungry. The gods do not yet know the reason why the sacrifices have stopped, but the birds brusquely intercept Iris and she finds out about their demands: humans have to sacrifice to the birds now.42 The next (semi-­)divine visitor to the bird-­polis is Prometheus, who has come as an informer. Although this is not made explicit in the play, Prometheus’ role as informer evokes, once again, his central part in the invention of sacrifice in Hesiod’s Theogony. In Birds his report about the suffering of the gods during the blockade is more dire even than that of Iris: PROM: Zeus is finished! PEIS: At about what time was he done in? PROM: From the moment you colonized the air. 38. The strongest evidence for Lucian’s knowledge of Ar., Av. specifically is his mention of the name of the bird-­polis, “Cloudcuckooland” (Νεφελοκοκκυγία, VH 1.29). On the second-­century CE reception of Aristophanes see Hall 2007, 6–­8; Bowie 2007; Rosen 2016; Peterson 2019, 52–­142; Kuin forthcoming. On Lucian’s knowledge of Attic drama see the Introduction. 39. Ar., Av. 191–­93: ἢν μὴ φόρον φέρωσιν οἱ ὑμῖν οἱ θεοί, / {διὰ τῆς πόλεως τῆς ἀλλοτρίας καὶ τοῦ χάους} / τῶν μηρίων τὴν κνῖσαν οὐ διαφρήσετε. 40. Ar., Av. 550–­64. 41. Ar., Av. 1231–­33: θύειν τοῖς Ὀλυμπίοις θεοῖς / μηλοσφαγεῖν τε βουθύτοις ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάραις / κνισᾶν τ᾽ ἀγυιάς. 42. Ar., Av. 1236–­37.

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No human being sacrifices anymore at all To the gods, no savory smells from roasting thighbones Have risen up to us from down below since that time. Now we fast, as if it is time for the Thesmophoria, Without our offerings.43 Peisetaerus first thinks Zeus has died.44 This is not the case, but the gods are in great distress. They are involuntarily fasting, just like women during the Thesmophoria. The embargo on sacrifices has led to an absurd inversion: instead of depriving themselves of food to honor the gods, humans (and birds) are now depriving the gods of food to force them into submission.45 The final scene of the play makes clear that the strategy of the birds has been effective. An embassy consisting of Heracles, Poseidon, and a “barbarian” god has come to negotiate. Heracles is exceptionally hungry: he is drooling over the meal Peisetaerus is cooking, and when Peisetaerus offers lunch as part of a settlement the glutton is immediately won over.46 Once the settlement is reached he offers to stay behind to roast the meat for the celebrations, but Poseidon does not trust him with it.47 Yet, Poseidon’s motives are no better than those of Heracles: Peisetaerus convinces him by saying that under the new agreement the birds will enforce human vows by exacting “a two-­sheep penalty” from those who are forgetful.48 The prospect of an improved flow of sacrifices, as compared to before the war, causes Poseidon to accept the transfer of power from Zeus to the birds. The sacrificial strike has worked. It has been argued that the sheer absurdity of a sacrificial strike and overthrow of Zeus prevents Birds from being a threat to existing religious institu43. Ar., Av. 1514–­20: ΠΡ: ἀπόλωλεν ὁ Ζεύς. ΠΕ: πηνίκ᾽ ἄττ᾽ ἀπώλετο; / ΠΡ: ἐξ οὗπερ ὑμεῖς ᾠκίσατε τὸν ἀέρα. / θύει γὰρ οὐδεὶς οὐδὲν ἀνθρώπων ἔτι / θεοῖσιν, οὐδὲ κνῖσα μηρίων ἄπο / ἀνῆλθεν ὡς ἡμᾶς ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνου τοῦ χρόνου, / ἀλλ᾽ ὡσπερεὶ Θεσμοφορίοις νηστεύομεν / ἄνευ θυηλῶν. 44. A pun on the double meaning of ἀπόλλυμι; cf. Ar., Av. 1506. Note shift from perfect to aorist; cf. Dunbar 1995, 699. 45. The blockade of the birds has actually caused humans to stop sacrificing, cf. Av. 1269–­1312; contra Dunbar (1995, 632), who thinks sacrifices for the gods are still happening but are not reaching them because of the wall. 46. Ar., Av. 1603–­4. Poseidon calls Heracles “stomach” (γάστρις), a term often used of Heracles, Loraux 1995 [1990], 123–­25; cf. Hill 2011, 87–­88. Compare also Ar., Ra. 571 where Heracles is “a detestable throat” (ὦ μιαρὰ φάρυγξ). 47. Ar., Av. 1689–­92. Heracles’ gluttony was a trope of ancient comedy, Σ on Pax 741, cf. Galinsky 1972, 82, 86–­88; Dover 1993, 198; Nesselrath 1990a, 220; Wilkins 2000, 90–­97; Parker 2005, 149n60; Revermann 2014, 281n21. Aristophanes comments on the trope at V. 60 and Pax 741, yet still uses the cliché himself, see Ra. 63, 107, 503–­12, 549–­60, 571. In pre-­Aristophanic comedy, too, Heracles is insatiable, e.g., in Epicharmus’ Busiris, cited at Ath. 10.1, cf. Hill 2011, 84. After Aristophanes the fragments of Alexis perpetuate the cliché, in Hesione (PCG 89) and Linus (PCG 140.8–­ 10, 17–­18); cf. Nesselrath 1990a, 228–­29; Olson 2007, 266–­68. Heracles remains a glutton even after his apotheosis, see e.g., Call., Dian. 159–­61 and in Lucian, Icar. 27 and I. trag. 32. 48. Ar., Av. 1616–­25.

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tions.49 Indeed, religious life indisputably continued as before after the Athenians had seen the play, which was of course performed in the context of the Great Dionysia, a festival that itself featured animal sacrifice for Dionysus. Yet, the stark contrast that such an approach draws between reality and the theater does not do justice to Aristophanes’ humor. The comedy of sacrificial strike is actually closely connected to everyday sacrifice. The fantasy about the consequences of depriving the gods of their offerings, in Lucian and in Aristophanes, underwrites the notion that sacrificial practice allows one to communicate with the gods, and simultaneously draws attention to the oddity of doing so by giving them foodstuffs. Imagining that the gods will go hungry when humans do not sacrifice exposes the far-­reaching physical anthropomorphism inherent in the practice, yet playfully corroborates the necessity of continuing to feed them.50 Another way in which Birds seems to bolster sacrificial practice is the centrality of a subverted, new version of the ritual in the play. After Peisetaerus’ installation as ruler, the chorus leader asks what needs to be done. Peisetaerus says: “First we should give the city a name, something grand and notable, and then, after that, sacrifice to the gods.”51 The unconventional sacrifice to the new bird-­gods, which takes up more than 250 lines, still has the trappings of the traditional ritual: a sacrificial basket, purifying water, invocations of the gods, and the reading of the entrails.52 As it turns out, even in Cloudcuckooland adhering to familiar rituals is necessary. The sacrifices in Lucian’s absurd dreamworld of the True Histories appear to fulfill a similar role. At the end of the first book the narrator “Lucian” and his companions watch two groups of giants make war on each other. The winning party sets up a trophy and offers sacrifice to thank the gods, on top of the whale that “Lucian” and his friends have found themselves trapped in; once they have safely escaped from the animal (now dead), they offer sacrifice to Poseidon next to the trophy set up by the giants.53 In the second book of True Histories the inhabitants of the Island of the Blessed offer hecatombs to the gods on altars of 49. Cf. Parker 2005, 150; Revermann 2014, 285. 50. Auffarth (1994) has sought to connect what he calls the “Opferstreik” in Aristophanes with older mythical narratives and cult practice, but his comparanda do not hold up. In Atra-­Hasis (II.i­ii and III.iv.21–­22 Lambert and Millard 1969) and Gilgamesh (XI.127 George 2003) the strike happens during a famine caused by the gods themselves; neither in Hes., Op. 135–­39 nor in h. Cer. 310–­ 12 do the gods go hungry, and in the latter Demeter causes the lack of sacrifices; at the Anthesteria the gods are deprived of sacrifices only on the second day, and the closing of the temples probably served to protect the gods against the spirits of the dead that came up, cf. Parker 2005, 290–­316. 51. Ar., Av. 809–­11: πρῶτον ὄνομα τῇ πόλει / θέσθαι τι μέγα καὶ κλεινόν, εἶτα τοῖς θεοῖς / θῦσαι μετὰ τοῦτο. 52. Ar., Av. 846–­1118. Cf. Chepel 2020, 66–­68, 98–­100. The much-­debated “human” sacrifice of the anti-­democratic birds (Av. 1583–­85, 1687–­88) is more likely a joke about the Athenian love of democracy than about cannibalism, cf. Dunbar 1995, 12, 719–­20; Meyer 2014, 292–­95. 53. VH 1.42: τῇ ὑστεραίᾳ δὲ θύσαντες ἐπὶ τοῦ κήτους. VH 2.2: καὶ θύσαντες τῷ Ποσειδῶνι αὐτοῦ παρὰ τὸ τρόπαιον. Cf. Georgiadou and Larmour 1998a, 178; Von Möllendorff 2000, 258.

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amethyst.54 How anyone would be able to obtain sacrificial animals, either on top of the whale or on the Island of the Blessed, is hard to understand,55 but narrative consistency is not what these vignettes from True Histories are about. The point is, rather, to juxtapose the familiar with the unfamiliar: the sacrificial custom is transported to the fantasy world of living in a whale or on the Island of the Blessed. Such sacrifices appear as comic, but at the same time the inclusion of sacrificial practice in Lucian’s and Aristophanes’ fantastic places underlines its importance. The persistence of sacrifice even beyond the real world suggests that no community can do without it. In the comic fantasies of literature gods are capable of experiencing physical hunger. Gods are supposed to be eternally supplied with ambrosia and nectar, but as a humorous explanation of the need for alimentary sacrifice the quintessentially human problem of hunger is projected onto the immortal gods, who nonetheless do not suffer the ultimate consequence. The gods’ extreme hunger caused by sacrificial strikes makes the assumptions underlying the symbolic exchange of sacrifice literal. The practice of making offerings to the gods implicitly presupposes that the gods are pleased by sacrifice and displeased by an absence of sacrifice. And yet the sacrificial relationship is fundamentally asymmetrical: the gods can harm us, but we cannot harm them.56 The natural endpoint of starvation, death, is always precluded. Through the paradoxical comic scenario of divine famine Aristophanes and Lucian manage to have it both ways. They point to the profound absurdity of humans feeding their gods, yet within their performed thought experiments the gods’ hunger affirms that it is imperative to continue to make offerings. In spite of worshippers’ strenuous attempts to control it, which I will discuss in the next section, sacrifice was a tool of communication with uncertain outcomes. In the comedic world of Aristophanes and Lucian the audience gets to act out the fantasy of finally gaining full control of the sacrificial process.57 The question of whether the offerings of humans mean anything to the gods, and if so what, is also asked by Dio Chrysostom, albeit in a very different 54. VH 2.11. 55. There is no mention of any livestock in the account of the Island and in the whale there were only birds and fruit trees. At VH 1.35 some of the inhabitants of the whale are called raw-­ meat eaters (ὠμοφάγον). Perhaps they eat the inside of the whale, or perhaps ōmofagoi is just a Herodotean cliché here. 56. Parker 1998, 124. 57. Cf. Chepel 2020, 180 (on Aristophanes). Ullucci (2011a, 54) argues that Lucian’s hungry gods could not be comic if the audience “truly believed that the gods needed animal sacrifices to survive,” and that therefore they did not believe this. Such an analysis glosses over how the presupposition that the gods need food from humans in sacrificial practice itself gives meaning to Lucian’s comic scenario.

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register. In his Rhodian Oration the orator approaches the issue by comparing different kinds of offerings: And as for the gods, you know, I presume, that whether a person makes a libation to them or merely gives incense or approaches them, so long as his intention is right, he has done enough. For perhaps the god needs no such thing as images or burnt sacrifices at all. Nonetheless, these offerings are not in vain, because in this way we show our dedication and our disposition toward the gods.58 Dio, much like Euthyphro in Plato’s dialogue, struggles to reconcile the self-­ sufficiency of the gods with the usefulness of making costly sacrificial offerings. If pressed Dio would have a hard time explaining why precisely burnt foodstuffs would be a suitable way to “show our dedication” to the gods. Imagining the gods as hungry stakes the opposite claim in this debate, namely that the gods do need human food, and thereby allows the form of sacrifices (food) and its meaning (showing the gods our dedication) to map onto each other entirely. Lucian, drawing on Aristophanes, depicts the gods as hungry and smarting under the imagined consequences of a feared sacrificial strike, and in doing so he responds to and participates in ongoing philosophical debates about sacrifice. His idiosyncratic contribution would probably have carried a variety of meanings for audience members. Some might conclude from the absurdity of seeing the gods hungry that the ritual was hopelessly contradictory, which would potentially but not necessarily have impacted their participation in the practice. Other audience members might for the first time ask themselves consciously why and how making offerings to the gods makes sense, and be satisfied with the humorous confirmation of the gods’ investment in sacrificial practice. The fundamental strangeness of giving the gods food would, however, have been imprinted on everyone who came and listened to Lucian perform.

Eating with the Gods In addition to asking what it means to perform the ritual of sacrifice at all, Lucian also investigates what it means to perform it in the specific ways in 58. D. Chr., 31.15: καὶ τὸ μὲν τῶν θεῶν ἴστε δήπουθεν, ὅτι κἂν σπείσῃ τις αὐτοῖς κἂν θυμιάσῃ μόνον κἂν προσάψηται, μεθ´ ἧς μέντοι προσήκει διανοίας, οὐθὲν ἔλαττον πεποίηκεν· οὐδὲ γὰρ δεῖται τῶν τοιούτων οὐθενὸς ἴσως ὁ θεὸς οἷον ἀγαλμάτων ἢ θυσιῶν· ἄλλως δὲ οὐ μάτην γίγνεται ταῦτα, τὴν προθυμίαν ἡμῶν καὶ τὴν διάθεσιν ἐμφαινόντων πρὸς αὐτούς. Text from Cohoon and Crosby 1940.

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which one is supposed to, or what we might call the mechanics of animal sacrifice. How do sacrificial goods get transferred from humans to gods? How large should sacrifices be, and what would be the preferred contents? I start this section by briefly discussing a fourth-­century BCE phlyax vase in order to show that concerns about the successful transfer of sacrifices could be expressed playfully also in a visual medium, already several centuries before Lucian. In Tragic Zeus we have seen the gods worrying about whether or not they would receive their fair share of the sacrifice. This vase shows that in the make-­believe world of divine burlesque this worry was portrayed as being entirely justified.59 Heracles is shown withholding food offerings from Zeus that presumably were placed on an altar for him. The thief is eating the offerings, which appear to be entrails. To the right of him Iolaus, his nephew, piously pours a libation, fulfilling the role of straight man in the comic scene. As is typical for phlyax vases the gods are depicted in caricature, with exaggerated features like enlarged bellies, buttocks, and noses.60 The known glutton Heracles is behaving scandalously by taunting Zeus, who is seated on a throne to the left of him, with his own offerings.61 Zeus waves a tiny thunderbolt and tries in vain to kick Heracles. He appears to be angry at the loss of food, and frustrated at his own powerlessness.62 The vase likely was used in a feast setting. An atmosphere of drunkenness, eating, and jests would be well suited to a joke about whether Zeus gets his portion or not. The phlyax scene may also be a comment on the precariousness of achieving communication through sacrifice. For an interaction to be successful the intended recipient needs to receive and accept the offerings. On the phlyax Heracles is stealing the offerings intended for Zeus, an act that was considered the height of impiety if perpetrated by humans.63 If the wrong god receives a sacrificial offering this undermines the careful choice of which god to sacrifice to on the part of the practitioner.64 59. Red figure bell krater, St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum B299 = LIMC Heracles 3373, cf. Trendall 1967, 33 no. 31. The other side of the vase shows two draped youths. 60. On caricature in phlyakes see Walsh 2009, xxviii, 13; Mitchell 2009, 151–­56. We cannot tell whether Heracles is depicted before or after his apotheosis, since he wears his lion skin as hero and as god, Cohen 1998, 127–­29. 61. Cf. British Museum London F99 = LIMC Heracles 1550, which is perhaps connected to Ar., Ra. 549–­71, with Walsh 2009, 227–­28; Naples Museo Nazionale Stg. 657 = LIMC Heracles 1523. Van Straten (1995, see index at “Heracles”) lists several vases with Heracles sacrificing, but few if any of these appear to be comical, cf. Stafford 2012, 112–­13, 117. See n47 above on Heracles as a glutton in literature. 62. Cf. Galinsky 1972, 96; Walsh 2009, 89–­90. 63. The bustirapus, “someone who steals from funerary pyres,” is a maligned figure in Latin poetry, Catul. 59.3–­4; Plaut., Ps. 361; Tib. 1.5.53–­54; Ter., Eu. 491. In Semonides’ invective we also encounter a woman stealing not-­yet burnt sacrifices (ἄθυστα, 7.56 Campbell); Nappa 1999, 329–­35. 64. Identifying the right god for the right occasion is a key feature of “advanced” polytheism, Rüpke 2016b [2011], 112. An oracle or epiphany may indicate the recipient of sacrifice, who has to be reached at their altar, Naiden 2013, 39–­51.

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Ensuring successful conveyance of sacrifices, and acceptance of the gift by the god, were bound up with procedure, the quality of the sacrificial animal, and the moral character of the participants.65 Many instances of rejections of offerings are reported, both in literature and in inscriptions.66 While these rejections were not caused by a bird-­made blockade or Heracles’ gluttony, such comic imagery does tap into the same concerns about the delivery of sacrifices that people sought to dispel by the strict observance of orthopraxis, and by maintaining inner and outer purity before and during sacrifice.67 Dio Chrysostom, in the same Rhodian Oration already mentioned, introduces a thought experiment reflective of such concerns in his attack on the people of Rhodes for rededicating and reinscribing old statues for new honorands: what if we paraded one sacrificial animal around the altars of Zeus, Helius, and Athena, making libations at each altar, and then pretended that we had made a sacrifice to all three of them? To do so, says Dio, would amount to acts of impiety (asebēmata)—­as is true of rededicating statues (Or. 31.14). Dio emphasizes the incongruity of using one sacrifice for multiple acts of worship in order to compare this to using one statue for multiple honorific dedications. But the comparison with sacrifice is also made for comic effect: clearly, using one animal to sacrifice to multiple gods would be absurd. While expedient and economical, such an action goes against the essence of the ritual, which is to communicate with a specific, carefully chosen god, through one or more carefully chosen sacrificial victims. In this sense the human asebēmata imagined by Dio are equivalent to Heracles’ offense against Zeus on the phlyax vase: both instances of sacrifice gone wrong raise the question of how, under normal circumstances, sacrificial offerings safely reach the gods. It is precisely this issue that Aristophanes explores in Birds with the plot device of building a wall, which implies that sacrificial smoke wafts upward through the sky to the gods in heaven.68 Lucian’s Icaromenippus pursues the same question, but goes into much greater detail. During his stay in heaven Menippus accompanies Zeus to the place where he receives sacrifices and prayers. There he sees four wells with lids, each with a throne for Zeus. The first opening brings up prayers, the second one oaths, the third one omens, and the fourth one smoke from burnt sacrifices.69 Menippus 65. Zaidman and Pantel 1992, 28–­39; Naiden 2013, 51–­81; 2015, 467. 66. Naiden 2013, 131–­82, 331–­46. See also Philog. 242 with discussion in this section below. 67. On the connections between inner and outer purity with respect to sacrifice see Petrovic and Petrovic 2016, 263–­98. 68. On the significance of this wall in relation to the Trojan myth see Chepel 2020, 177–­80. 69. Icar. 25–­26. In a funny inversion Zeus, it appears, observes the omens in order to act in accordance with them instead of sending them to people as a sign. On the sources for the well imagery see: Schwartz 1969; Anderson 1980; Hall 1981, 110–­12, 135, 490–­93; Camerotto 2009, 132–­34.

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reports that the smoke comes up and “relates to Zeus the name of each man who is sacrificing.”70 Precisely how the smoke announces the name is difficult to understand.71 Perhaps Menippus means that the smoke forms signals somehow announcing the name of the dedicator? By leaving Menippus’ description rather vague Lucian, in any case, successfully underlines the precariousness of the assumption that the gods will know who made a sacrifice. A joke from the Philogelos collection, parts of which likely already circulated in Lucian’s time, implies that prayers and smoke go up by the same route. When a man with bad breath keeps looking up to heaven to pray, Zeus looks down and says: “Go away already, you have gods below as well!”72 Zeus, waiting for the delicious smoke of burnt fat, gets irritated with the smelly prayers, and turns the man away, directing him to pray to the gods of the underworld instead. Menippus’ unlikely report and Zeus’ crude joke are both concerned with how offerings are transferred to the gods, how the gods identify the sender upon receipt, and whether the sacrifice will be accepted—­all would have been questions of great importance to ancient audience members regularly making sacrificial offerings. Scenarios of sacrificial strike ultimately are about the question of what sacrifice means to the gods: sustenance, honor, or reputation; a combination of this subset, or even something else entirely? Evidently the answer to this question, in turn, is significant in deciding what to offer to the gods, how much, and how often. The fact that none of this was easy to determine left ample room for both philosophical discussion and humorous exploration. Lucian’s piece On Sacrifices features, as already suggested by its title, the most detailed, sustained treatment of the ritual in his works, even if it also takes into account other elements of religious cult.73 Because the piece is spoken by a first-­person narrator, scholars have been eager to attribute its critical view of sacrifice to the author himself. This creates the problem of how to reconcile these views with 70. Icar. 26: ἀπήγγελλεν τῷ Διὶ τοῦ θύοντος ἑκάστου τοὔνομα. 71. Romans used smoke signals in warfare, e.g., Caes., Civ. 3.65; cf. Southern 2006, 229–­30. Naiden (2013, 40) imagines Zeus looking down after sniffing the smoke to see who is sacrificing, cf. Bis acc. 2 and Fug. 1–­2 (where Zeus is disgusted by the smoke from Peregrinus’ self-­immolation, on which see chapter 6). 72. Philog. 242: † μία μία χαρεῖς † καὶ κάτω θεούς ἔχεις. Text following Dawe 2000. As indicated, the first half of the line is problematic. Dawe writes: “exspectares e.g., μίαν (sc. χάριν) μοι χάρισαι” (2000, 75); on the issue see also Thierfelder 1968, 275–­76. The collection is conventionally dated to the fourth century CE, e.g., Thierfelder 1968, 12–­15; Baldwin 1983, iv–­viii; Beard 2014, 186–­201. Many jokes evidently started circulating earlier, see e.g., nos. 62 (which refers to Rome’s millennial celebration in 248 CE) and 73 (which refers to the Augustan period); several jokes are also attested in pre-­Lucianic authors as early as the first century BCE, e.g., Philog. 193 at Cic., de Orat. 2.276. Winkler (1985, 160–­65) argues that the scholasticus-­jokes of Philog. were already in circulation before Apuleius wrote Met., that is, in the mid-­to late second century CE. 73. Graf (2011, 210–­11) suggests, for this reason, that the title of the work is not Lucian’s, “but the addition of a Christian monk in Byzantium.”

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the more positive or at least ambivalent representations of sacrifice in other Lucianic pieces.74 If we pay careful attention to the rhetoric of On Sacrifices, however, it becomes clear that in the piece Lucian employs the technique of ēthopoeia (a speech in character), just as he does in the work Astrology. In the latter a Stoic thinker offers an absurd encomium of astrology;75 in similar vein On Sacrifices shows a philosopher of mostly Cynical bent attacking sacrifice and other features of religious festival at a comically feverish pitch. This use of ēthopoeia in On Sacrifices does not mean that we can completely dismiss the piece’s criticism: Lucian still chose to expose his audience to these ideas, and by using a first-­person narrator he willfully created an opportunity for conflation of the speaker’s views with his own. But his skillful, unflattering characterization of the speaker in On Sacrifices does entail, simply put, that we cannot take its contents at face value.76 The speaker of On Sacrifices starts out by vividly poking fun at mythical (Homeric) examples that stress the tit-­for-­tat aspect of sacrifice. Artemis sits “stewing” in heaven by herself, having been left out of Oeneus’ sacrifices, and sets the big boar on the Calydonians in revenge. Conversely, the Ethiopians will be thrice-­blessed if Zeus will “really remember his gratitude” to them for feasting him and the other gods for twelve days.77 From these examples the speaker concludes: So nothing, it seems, that they do is done without compensation. They sell men their blessings, and it is possible to buy from them health, perhaps, for a calf, wealth with four oxen, a royal throne with a hundred oxen, a safe return from Troy to Pylos with nine bulls, and passage from Aulis to Troy for a royal maiden. . . . We must imagine that they also have many things on sale in exchange for a cock or a wreath or just incense.78 74. Belayche (2011), Ullucci (2011a, 54–­55), and Berdozzo (2019c, 119–­25) unequivocally interpret Sacr. as expressing Lucian’s views; Graf (2011) notes discrepancies with other Lucianic pieces, but still draws the same conclusion. 75. See on the speaker of Astr. McNamara 2013. 76. See e.g., Whitmarsh (2013, 63–­74) on the literary “I” in ancient literature; for full discussion of this issue in Lucian and further bibliography see chapter 1. 77. Sacr. 1–­2: σχετλιάζων . . . εἴ γε ἀπομνημονεύει τὴν χάριν. For Artemis and the boar see Il. 9.524–­605; for Zeus and the Ethiopians see Il. 1.423–­27. Artemis’ anger is similarly used in a comic register at Plu., De Superst. 170A; cf. Kuin 2020a. 78. Sacr. 2: οὕτως οὐδέν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἀμισθὶ ποιοῦσιν ὧν ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ πωλοῦσιν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τἀγαθά, καὶ ἔνεστι πρίασθαι παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τὸ μὲν ὑγιαίνειν, εἰ τύχοι, βοϊδίου, τὸ δὲ πλουτεῖν βοῶν τεττάρων, τὸ δὲ βασιλεύειν ἑκατόμβης, τὸ δὲ σῶον ἐπανελθεῖν ἐξ Ἰλίου εἰς Πύλον ταύρων ἐννέα, καὶ τὸ ἐκ τῆς Αὐλίδος εἰς Ἴλιον διαπλεῦσαι παρθένου βασιλικῆς . . . εἰκάζειν δὲ χρὴ πολλὰ εἶναι ἀλεκτρυόνος καὶ στεφάνου καὶ λιβανωτοῦ μόνου παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ὤνια. Popma (1931, 14) connects the mention of the ἀλεκτρυόνος here with I. trag. 15; on this passage see n31 above.

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The narrator escalates the size of the offerings, ending with Iphigeneia and human sacrifice,79 only to quickly reassure the audience that modest gifts to the gods can also buy you many things, though he remains ominously silent on what those might be.80 The speaker’s description of sacrifice brings up two related issues: the seemingly transactional nature of sacrifice, and the differences in size and value between sacrifices. Both themes surface repeatedly in Lucian’s other treatments of sacrifice, and in the accounts of other authors as well. In On Sacrifices the speaker employs similarly commercial language to describe sacrifice as Zeus does in Tragic Zeus. Menippus’ description of the sacrificial wells in Icaromenippus likewise makes explicit the problems arising from understanding sacrifice as a transaction: Menippus relates how Zeus struggles to decide which prayer to grant when two men are asking for opposite things and promising equally valuable sacrifices. His indecision all but proves—­precisely as the speaker of On Sacrifices notes with great scorn—­that there is a direct connection between the size of a vowed offering and the likelihood of a prayer being granted.81 This comic vignette is in turn reminiscent of a Menandrian fragment, where the same problem is represented, but from the perspective of the sacrificer.82 An unidentified comedic character wonders out loud whether making sacrifices is a good idea; the man compares his outlay of ten drachmas for an offering to the potential monetary benefit from the sacrifice, provided it turns out well.83 Menander caricatures the sacrificial relationship by explicitly portraying it as an investment. For many among the mainstream audiences of both Lucian and Menander the expense of sacrifice would have been a burden. When you think of sacrifice as a business transaction, there is a clear relation between the size of one’s offering and the outcome one can expect. If you are only able to make a small offering, you will probably wonder about the relation between the size of your gifts to the gods and your lot in life.84 Dio Chrysostom addresses this issue in 79. Nasrallah (2011, 150) connects the role of human sacrifice in Lucian’s piece to discussions of human sacrifice in Christian authors contemporary with him. The topic resurfaces in Sacr. 12, where the Scythians’ sacrifices for Artemis are mentioned. 80. An even more modest offering is mentioned in Sacr. 12: “the poor man propitiates the gods just by kissing his own right hand” (ὁ δὲ πένης ἱλάσατο τὸν θεὸν κύσας μόνον τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δεξιάν). 81. Icar. 25; cf. Popma (1931, 8–­9) who connects this passage with Sacr. 1; Fields (2020, 170) sees an allusion to emperors’ answering subjects’ petitions, on Zeus as a stand-­in for the emperor see chapter 5. 82. Lucian knew Menander well, Karavas and Vix 2013, 187–­90. The same was probably true for many in his audience. On Menander in the imperial period generally: ibid., 183–­98, in education: Cribiore 2001, 199–­201. 83. Men. F 264.1–­10 Sandbach; cf. Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 698–­99. 84. For Lucian’s audience see chapter 1; for Menander, see Rosivach 2000. Cf. Hes., Op. 336,

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his orations on multiple occasions. In his Rhodian Oration, discussed above in this section, he tried to reconcile the notion that small sacrifices of incense made with the right intention are sufficient for the gods with the claim that statues and animal sacrifices are not in vain either, because they demonstrate one’s devotion. Elsewhere Dio takes a stronger position, namely that smaller sacrifices are a sign of greater piety,85 or even that the gods are pleased by prudence and wisdom more than by incense or myrrh.86 We should probably attribute such inconsistencies to Dio’s efforts to tailor his works to different occasions (real or imagined), and his willingness to adopt a range of philosophical guises.87 Lucian’s approach to sacrifice is radically different, as he seems to push back against Dio’s attempts to disconnect divine favor from the value of worshippers’ offerings. Generally speaking, people make large sacrifices thinking that they will gain something (in addition to social prestige) by doing so, and, conversely, that making smaller sacrifices would result in less divine favor—­ Lucian would have found equivocation on this point such as we find in Dio hypocritical, and instead foregrounds the problem of divine favor as relative to the value of offerings made. In Lucian’s Zeus Refuted we encounter Zeus pushing back against the transactional view of sacrifice in much the same way as Dio: Those who sacrifice do not do this for the sake of some benefit, driving a sort of bargain, and as if they were buying benefits from us, but they simply honor what is superior.88 The god uses similar language as the anonymous speakers in On Sacrifices and the Menander fragment to make the opposite point: sacrifice is a way of which says each should sacrifice to their ability; Socrates quotes this at X., Mem. 1.3.3, adding that the gods should not prefer large sacrifices over small ones, because this equals preferring sacrifices from bad people to those from good people; the stingy Cnemon advocates small sacrifices of incense and meal-­cakes at Men., Dysc. 449–­54. 85. D. Chr. 13.35: ὅσῳ γὰρ ἂν εὐσεβέστεροι καὶ ὁσιώτεροι γένησθε, τοσούτῳ ἐλάττων ἔσται πάρ’ ὑμῖν ὁ λιβανωτὸς καὶ τὰ θυμιάματα καὶ τὰ στεφανώματα, καὶ θύσετε ἐλάττους θυσίας καὶ ἀπ’ ἐλάττονος δαπάνης. Text from Cohoon 1939. 86. D. Chr. 33.28: ἀλλὰ σωφροσύνη καὶ νοῦς ἐστι τὰ σῴζοντα. ταῦτα ποιεῖ τοὺς χρωμένους μακαρίους, ταῦτα τοῖς θεοῖς προσφιλεῖς, οὐχὶ λιβανωτὸς οὐδὲ σμύρνα. Text from Cohoon and Crosby 1940. 87. Swain 2000, 7. 88. I. conf. 7: οἱ δέ γε θύοντες οὐ τῆς χρείας ἕνεκα θύουσιν, ἀντίδοσιν δέ τινα ποιούμενοι καὶ ὥσπερ ὠνούμενοι τὰ ἀγαθὰ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ τιμῶντες ἄλλως τὸ βέλτιον. Macleod (1972) prints ἄλλοι for ἀλλὰ; I follow Harmon (1915) instead. Compare also Dem. 11, where Demonax defends himself against the charge of having never sacrificed to Athena saying: “I did not think she had any need for sacrifices from me” (οὐδὲ γὰρ δεῖσθαι αὐτὴν τῶν παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ θυσιῶν ὑπελάμβανον).

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honoring the gods, not a bargain. Zeus’ comment, however, is rather suspect within the context of the piece. He is responding to a Cynic philosopher who has argued that if the Fates control everything there is no point in sacrificing to the gods. It is at this juncture of the debate that Zeus starts denying that sacrifice is a transaction. Since the gods have nothing to offer in return for the gifts of humans, Zeus, paradoxically, has to argue that sacrifices are not a payment, in order to convince humans to continue their offerings and thereby preserve his livelihood. The god almost appears to have borrowed this argument from Lucian’s near contemporary Maximus of Tyre. He claimed that it is foolishness to try to alter the course of one’s life as determined by the Fates through prayers or animal sacrifices.89 Such a position need not entail that Maximus objected to sacrifice, but he at least thought that it was impossible to bargain for a better life through offerings. The opportunism of Lucian’s Zeus in Zeus Refuted could not be greater: he needs sacrifices but knows that he cannot offer anything in return, and he knows that the Cynic philosopher knows this, so he facetiously picks up the thread from thinkers like Maximus and Dio to reframe sacrifice as an honor to induce humans to continue the practice even if they do not stand to gain anything by doing so. Jokes in Menander and Lucian about the size, worth, and meaning of offerings to the gods are rooted in the ancient debate about whether sacrifice is a bribe or an honor. As we have seen, this debate occupied both Dio and Maximus of Tyre, but it was rooted ultimately in Plato’s Euthyphro, already mentioned briefly in section 1 above. When Socrates questions Euthyphro about what piety is he answers that it consists in correctly praying and sacrificing to the gods.90 Socrates rephrases Euthyphro’s answer, and defines praying and sacrificing as asking from the gods what we need from them and giving to the gods what they need from us, like “some kind of commercial trade.”91 Euthyphro initially agrees, but Socrates then asks: “What profit do they derive from what they take from us?”92 Euthyphro indignantly rejects this question, and says that sacrifice is “honor, recognition, and thanks” for the gods.93 Socrates’ questioning exposes the essence of the unevenness of the sacrificial relationship between humans and gods: we have to make offerings to the gods, even though they are not supposed to need anything from us. The humor in Menander and Lucian 89. Max. Tyr. 5.5; cf. Graf 2011, 209. 90. Pl., Euthphr. 14B. 91. Pl., Euthphr. 14E: τις τέχνη ἐμπορική. 92. Pl., Euthphr. 15A: ἃ δὲ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν λαμβάνουσιν, τί ὠφελοῦνται; Cf. Bailly 2003, 103–­5. Compare also Lucian’s Cont. 12, where Solon asks Croesus whether Apollo needs Croesus’ gold ingots from Lydia. 93. Pl., Euthphr. 15A: τιμή τε καὶ γέρα καί . . . χάρις.

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about sacrificial communication exaggerates the tension inherent to ancient sacrifice by dramatizing the discrepancy between the philosophical position that sacrifice is an honor not a transaction, on the one hand, and the reality of sacrificial practice on the other, in which value and size mattered a great deal.94 Questions about the purpose and effect of offerings, containing particular urgency for those who could only offer small sacrifices, would typically be latent for audience members, but they are brought to the fore in the comedic spaces created by Menander and Lucian. A final question that the practice of sacrifice raises is what kinds of offerings the gods should receive. In the world of comedy this problem is phrased as: what do the gods like to eat, and how? The gods received sacrifices in the form of burnt foodstuffs, including vegetarian offerings, meat, bones, and entrails, and the blood from sacrificial animals sprinkled on the altar. The gods were typically not conceived of as actually eating meat offered in sacrificial practice beyond their partaking of the smoke and blood. Still, some parts of the animal were placed aside for the gods and not burnt.95 In modern scholarship the issue of whether the gods were thought to eat meat or not has been fiercely debated, and this question was likewise unresolved in antiquity, leaving room for several kinds of (comic) answers.96 Critics of (animal) sacrifice often argued that humans only sacrifice to the gods what they themselves do not eat. The grumpy miser from Menander’s Dyscolus thinks practitioners of animal sacrifice are hypocrites, because, he alleges, they only offer the tail and the gall bladder.97 While it is certainly the case that the parts of the animal that were sacrificed were often of lesser value for human consumption, this was not true universally, as shown most clearly by the holocaust offerings in which a whole animal was burnt.98 94. Tim. 1–­10 is another case in point: Zeus decides to restore Timon to wealth, because of the lavish sacrifices he made to the gods in the past. 95. Zaidman and Pantel 1992, 35–­36; cf. Naiden 2013, 69. Exceptions are the theoxenia (a banquet for the gods) and trapezometa (a table next to the altar with food set aside for the gods) rituals. Both consisted largely of vegetarian offerings, cf. Parker 2011, 142–­44; Naiden 2013, 56–­ 59. The splanchna (entrails) were not burnt, they were set aside for the gods as their portion, and subsequently eaten by priests, Zaidman and Pantel 1992, 35–­36; cf. Parker 2011, 141; contra Versnel 2011, 364. 96. In Structuralism this issue defines the difference between humans and gods: the former eat meat, the latter do not, Vernant 1989b [1979], 165; contra Parker 2011, 141. Gods eat meat with abandon in Aristophanes: Pax 192–­93, 202, Pl. 1128–­30; in Ovid they do so unproblematically at Met. 8.612–­727 but emphatically not at 1.226–­31; in h. Merc. 129–­33 Hermes famously restrains himself from eating meat, but barely. See further on these passages: Versnel 2011, 309–­76; Vergados 2013, 342–­43; Thomas 2017. 97. Men., Dysc. 451–­52. The sentiment is echoed in later philosophical critiques of sacrifice, e.g., Porph., Abst. 2.11. 98. Ekroth 2002, 217–­41.

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To pursue the question of what gods eat further we return to Icaromenippus one more time. On Olympus Ganymede secretly slips Menippus some ambrosia and nectar, and the gods give him fish, bread, and meat to eat. Their own diet is different: “They do not eat bread, nor drink ruddy wine,” (= Il. 5.341) but have ambrosia set before them and get drunk on nectar. Most of all they enjoy being nourished by the smoke from sacrifices sent up to them all savory, and the blood of the sacrificial victims, which people pour over altars when they sacrifice.99 Menippus quotes the Iliad, and comments that Homer must have visited heaven just like him. He emphasizes the distinction between human and divine diets,100 but humans and gods enjoy their nourishment with similar relish. The gods “get drunk on nectar,” and “enjoy being nourished on the smoke and blood.” Lucian skirts the issue of why the gods need sacrifices if they already have ambrosia in this passage.101 The coexistence of imagining the gods as enjoying both their own ambrosia and the (smoke from) the foodstuffs sacrificed by humans in Icaromenippus is in line with ancient conceptions of sacrifice generally, where the two scenarios coincided “in unresolved but unproblematic tension.”102 Yet the speaker of On Sacrifices, who appears to be as much a scholar as a critic of sacrifice, attempts to systematize the gods’ double food supply. When the gods come down to earth “they all have a feast opening their mouths for the smoke and drinking the blood poured out over the altars, just like flies,” but “if they dine at home their meal consists in nectar and ambrosia.”103 The speaker imagines the gods hovering over gory altars to inhale and lap up the blood, a rather unflattering image that prefigures the best-­known passage from On Sacrifices. How could the peculiar and violent gift of killing an animal bring honor  99. Icar. 27: οὔτε “σῖτον ἔδουσιν, οὐ πίνουσ’ αἴθοπα οἶνον” (= Il. 5.341), ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀμβροσίαν παρατίθενται καὶ τοῦ νέκταρος μεθύσκονται, μάλιστα δὲ ἥδονται σιτούμενοι τὸν ἐκ τῶν θυσιῶν καπνὸν αὐτῇ κνίσῃ ἀνενηνεγμένον καὶ τὸ αἷμα δὲ τῶν ἱερείων, ὃ τοῖς βωμοῖς οἱ θύοντες περιχέουσιν. 100. Cf. D. Deor. 10 where Zeus explains to Ganymede that the gods drink nectar, not milk. 101. Compare Il. 4.49 where the gods enjoy ambrosia and smoke from sacrifices, cf. Naiden 2013, 111–­13. 102. Parker 2011, 142. 103. Sacr. 9: εὐωχοῦνται πάντες ἐπικεχηνότες τῷ καπνῷ καὶ τὸ αἷμα πίνοντες τοῖς βωμοῖς προσχεόμενον ὥσπερ αἱ μυῖαι˙ ἢν δὲ οἰκοσιτῶσιν, νέκταρ καὶ ἀμβροσία τὸ δεῖπνον. In Gilgamesh (XI.161–­63 George 2003; this is a quotation from Atra-­Hasis) the gods also hover over sacrifices like flies; cf. Meiser 1904, 31–­32; contra Berdozzo 2011, 74–­75. There are also Near Eastern influences, inter alia from Atra-­Hasis, in DDS, Lightfoot 2003, 335–­51; cf. West 2003a; and in Luct. and Icar., Anderson 2003, 241. For this type of imagery in Lucian cf. Cont. 22 and VH 1.23.

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and delight to the gods? In pursuing this specific question, the interests of the speaker of On Sacrifices fit remarkably well with the concepts of “the kill” and “the comedy of innocence” from Burkert’s theory of animal sacrifice, inspired in turn by the work of Karl Meuli.104 Criticism of that account has focused on the rarity of concerns about the violence of animal sacrifice in ancient sources,105 yet such concerns clearly are important to Lucian’s speaker: They bring the sacrificial animal to the altar and slaughter it under the eyes of the god, while it moans making, as seems probable, auspicious sounds and fluting low music to accompany the sacrifice. Who would not assume that the gods enjoy seeing all this? And although the notice says that no one is allowed to enter the grounds sprinkled with holy water who does not have clean hands, the priest stands there all bloody, just like the Cyclops, cutting and pulling out the entrails, grabbing the heart, and pouring the blood on the altar. What pious act, indeed, does he leave undone?106 The speaker uses vivid language to highlight the dissonance between the preparatory purification undergone by all participants before the sacrifice and the priest’s bloody appearance during the ritual.107 His description of the animal’s alleged assent to the sacrifice is highly sarcastic,108 as is his rhetorical ques104. Cf. Graf 2011, 204. On Burkert’s theory of animal sacrifice see the opening of this chapter above. 105. Cf. Osborne 2016, 233–­34. An exception is Ar., Pax 1019–­20. During a sacrificial ritual for Peace personified the slave who has to cut the sheep’s throat protests that “Peace does not delight in slaughter or altars running with blood” (οὐχ ἥδεται δήπουθεν Εἰρήνη σφαγαῖς, οὐδ᾽ αἱματοῦται βωμός). The animal is then brought inside the skēnē and slaughtered there, which leads to the metatheatrical joke that this will save the chorēgos the expense of a sheep (Ar., Pax 1022; cf. Redfield 2012, 174). 106. Sacr. 12–­13: προσάγουσι τῷ βωμῷ καὶ φονεύουσιν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς τοῦ θεοῦ γοερόν τι μυκώμενον καὶ ὡς τὸ εἰκὸς εὐφημοῦν καὶ ἡμίφωνον ἤδη τῇ θυσίᾳ ἐπαυλοῦν. τίς οὐκ ἂν εἰκάσειεν ἥδεσθαι ταῦτα ὁρῶντας τοὺς θεούς; καὶ τὸ μὲν πρόγραμμά φησι μὴ παριέναι εἰς τὸ εἴσω τῶν περιρραντηρίων ὅστις μὴ καθαρός ἐστιν τὰς χεῖρας˙ ὁ δὲ ἱερεὺς αὐτὸς ἕστηκεν ᾑμαγμένος καὶ ὥσπερ ὁ Κύκλωψ ἐκεῖνος ἀνατέμνων καὶ τὰ ἔγκατα ἐξαιρῶν καὶ καρδιουλκῶν καὶ τὸ αἷμα τῷ βωμῷ περιχέων καὶ τί γάρ οὐκ εὐσεβὲς ἐπιτελῶν; The imagery employed is strongly reminiscent of E., Cyc. 396–­408; cf. Plu., De Defect. 435B for another usage of the play in a philosophical-­religious context. 107. The contradiction of purifying oneself through a ritual that involves staining and pollution with blood was already felt by Heraclitus (F 5 DK), and would go on to be a concern for generations of subsequent critics of sacrifice, cf. Petrovic and Petrovic 2016, 67–­100. 108. Compare Men., Dysc. 438–­39 where a sheep about to be sacrificed is unwilling; because the woman who has ordered it is late they cannot start the sacrifice; when she finally arrives the slave jokes that “the poor sheep could not endure your delay and has all but died already” (τὸ γοῦν πρόβατον—­μικροῦ τέθνηκε γὰρ τάλαν—­/ οὐ περιμενεῖ τῆν σὴν σχολήν). Cf. Handley 1965, 199–­ 230; Naiden 2013, 196–­97. On unwilling sacrificial animals in vase painting see Van Straten 1995, 100–2.

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tion concerning the gods’ reaction. The rhetorical question closing the passage seems to be a play on a topos from forensic oratory. Instead of “what crime did he leave undone?” the speaker ironically asks “what pious (eusebēs) act did he leave undone?”109 Without a doubt On Sacrifices contains the strongest criticism of (animal) sacrifice to be found in Lucian’s works, and the speaker of the piece draws on well-­known, serious arguments against the practice. At the same time it is easy to imagine Lucian’s audience being amused by the biting sarcasm of the speaker’s comments, the humorous vignettes of a brooding Artemis and gods hovering like flies, and his parody of familiar rhetorical topoi. The gory image of the priest as the blood-­drenched Cyclops mixes pathos and horror, crossing into the territory of the comically grotesque. Would the audience view the speaker as a raving, ridiculous madman, obsessed with the cruelty of a ritual that they themselves had no qualms about whatsoever? Would they, in other words, laugh at him and thereby laugh off his criticism of sacrifice? Or would they, rather, be drawn into his vision, and share in his disgust at and derision of the practice of ritual sacrifice, and anyone complicit in it? Precisely because On Sacrifices is a work of satire, it is impossible to answer this question conclusively: the instability and impenetrability of the satirical voice is arguably its most fundamental feature.110 As a result the piece partakes of the same laughter-­fueled openness as Lucian’s dialogues that feature sacrifice prominently, Icaromenippus and Tragic Zeus: sacrifice is turned inside out and upside down for comic effect, and the odd complexity of honoring such humanlike divinities in ritual practice is put on full display. Most audience members after hearing these works would likely have returned to their lives outwardly unchanged, displaying the same greater or lesser degree of enthusiasm for ritual (animal) sacrifice as before. They would, nonetheless, carry with them the experience of having joined Lucian in his inquiry, now seeing the intricate attempt at communication and reciprocity with the gods at the center of their religious culture in starker relief.

Conclusion I started this chapter with Lucian’s dialogue Prometheus, in which the eponymous protagonist encourages the audience to look at his myth, the story of the 109. Sacr. 13. The most famous example of the topos is probably Cic., Catil. 1.6: quod facinus a manibus umquam tuis . . . afuit? Compare also the humorous appropriation of Cic., Catil. 1.1 at Apul., Met. 3.27, 6.26, 7.20, and 8.23, cf. Winkler 1985, 17; LaBua 2013. On the ironic tone of the passage see already Popma 1931, 34–­36. 110. Hooley 2007, 1–­12; on the issue of satirical persona in Lucian see also chapter 1.

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“first” sacrifice, through a comic lens. Prometheus’ attitude in the piece functions as a quasi-­programmatic statement for the author’s engagement with sacrifice. The habit of satirizing and ridiculing sacrifice was as enduring among the ancients as sacrifice itself. Its importance as a religious practice did not make it exempt from the kinds of comic subversions that targeted other aspects of everyday life, rather, it necessitated playfully critical responses to the ritual. This type of humor temporarily defamiliarizes the familiar, allowing audience members to view their practices from a new perspective. In the humorous reflections on sacrifice, of Lucian and others, the gods play an unusually active part. In ancient sacrifice the only contribution from the gods to the ritual was signaling, through the shape of the entrails or the curve in a burnt tail, whether or not the sacrifice had been good; if a sacrifice failed the only thing the practitioner could do was to try again and repeat the ritual.111 In the imaginary, comic world of literature and art gods argue about what sacrifice means, they come down to consume their offerings, and they steal from one another. This active and responsive role of the gods thematizes the strangeness of relying on such a logistically demanding ritual, and it functions as a sort of wishful thinking to relieve people’s uncertainties about the efficacy of their most important means of communication with the gods. When Lucian shows the gods smarting under the prospect of a sacrificial strike he follows and perpetuates an existing comic register concerned with the overall meaning of the practice. What is different about Lucian is that he goes into much greater detail both in his reworking of philosophical arguments about sacrifice, and in his engagement with the mechanics of the ritual procedure. In this way his performances responded and contributed to what I referred to above in the opening of this chapter as the “greater cultural significance” of sacrifice during his lifetime, providing an alternative conduit for reflection. By making literal the assumptions underlying sacrifice, and their consequences, Lucian ups the ante, allowing for a free, wide-­roaming exploration of the implications of divine anthropomorphism. By depicting the gods with an unflattering brush as hungry and greedy, he chips away at the philosophical notion that the gods were exemplary models of virtue, justice, and benevolence, which was so important to many of his contemporaries. Lucian’s comic vision of sacrifice rejects the philosophical attempts of his contemporaries to smooth over or explain away difficult issues like the proportionality of divine favor to sacrificial offerings in the context of enormous social inequality. Why are people who offer large, valuable sacrifices prosperous? The process of answering this question is somewhat like the chicken-­or-­ 111. Expressed in the phrase hiera kala, Naiden 2013, 175–­77.

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the-­egg-­dilemma. One explanation would be that large sacrifices made by the wealthy are a symptom of their great piety and inherent moral worth, which the gods had long since recognized and rewarded them for with, you guessed it, wealth. Another explanation would be that the gods always reward those who make large sacrifices in kind with great riches, which will allow them to continue to make large sacrifices, which the gods will again reward, and so on and so forth. The first explanation is the one offered by the model of the theodicy of good fortune, as explained in the Introduction. In this worldview the poor suffer not because they cannot afford to curry divine favor through large sacrifices—­as Dio insists the gods like small sacrifices just as much—­ but because they are morally lacking. Lucian’s depiction of the gods’ attitude toward sacrifices instead strongly corroborates the second explanation: they are interested only in the size of offerings, and show no concern for the virtue or morality of worshippers; for them sacrifices are food and payment, not honor. Through his comedy Lucian attempts to show that the internal structure of sacrificial practice, as well as the traditional mythical narratives about it underpin the transactional nature of the ritual. Given that often rich people are not that virtuous—­many of his audience members would agree with him here—­it seems altogether more likely, suggests Lucian, that if there are gods they are hungry for sacrifices, rather than judiciously indifferent to them. Imagining immortal gods as suffering from hunger is a form of exaggerated anthropomorphism akin to depicting the gods as being in love—­yet the blessedness and power of the gods are firmly reestablished by the fact that the ultimate consequence, death from starvation, is always precluded, meaning that there will still be gods left to sacrifice to, and the imperfect reciprocity of the practice can continue. In the next chapter we turn to Lucian’s reworking of the old stories about anthropomorphic gods being in love, which operates in conversation with the so-­called mentality of conjugality among his contemporaries. The violent nature of erotic desire among the gods is another test case for Lucian’s rejection of their moral exemplarity; second, he indicts the infusion of erotic gazing and desire into the worship relationship between mortals and gods, which, just as sacrifice, can in fact only ever be an experience of failed reciprocity.

CHAPTER 4 ❦

Passions Worship and Desire

Daphnis and Chloe, Paul and Thecla, and Bacchon and Ismenodora—­the famous couples from Longus’ novel, the New Testament Apocrypha, and Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love, respectively—­all attest to the strong interest in profound heterosexual unions in the literature of the first and second centuries CE. Whether or not this literary interest should be connected to changing attitudes regarding love, marriage, and heterosexuality within Roman society at this time has been intensely debated. Paul Veyne and shortly thereafter Michel Foucault indeed argued for a “new conjugality” among the Roman elites—­a rejection of extramarital sex and homosexual relationships, and a simultaneous idealization of marriage as a symmetrical and reciprocal bond. Their explanation was a political one; because the Roman nobility within the Empire were no longer truly able to express themselves in the public domain, they turned their attention to their family lives instead.1 Ancient historians have taken the arguments of Veyne and Foucault to task for misreading the evidence, and for extrapolating claims about widespread attitudes from highly particular sources.2 Another fundamental problem with the “new conjugality” model is that it was constructed without taking into account the perspective of women. As has been pointed out, Foucault nor Veyne made any attempts to consider sources (possibly) written by women. In their respective studies they also fail to recognize the likely consequences for women of such an exclusively elite male sexual ethics, even though some of the ancient texts they used explicitly address men and wom-

1. Veyne 1990 [1978]; Foucault 1986 [1984], 72–­80, 235–­40. 2. Cohen and Saller 1994; cf. Swain 2013, 40–­44, 288–­89. Goldhill (1995, 112–­61) criticized Foucault for eliding the discursive nature of the ancient texts he used, and thereby simplifying male desire.

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en.3 Methodological restrictions such as these would be problematic for any project within ancient social history, but they are especially damning when the subject is the legal bond between men and women: marriage. Recently the question of the Veyne-­Foucault hypothesis on marriage in the early Roman Empire has been reopened. Even though a widespread change in attitudes shared by men and women can indeed not be proven on the basis of the available sources, the quantity of writings that engage with marriage as a topic remains remarkable, and the role of the gods in these writings especially. Lucian’s elaborate and recurring treatments of the familiar stories of gods as lovers, which already since the Iliad and the Odyssey had operated within a comic register, push back against glorifying conjugality as such, and against incorporating the gods as models in this worldview. In pursuing these stories we find ourselves entangled in mythical narratives depicting the anthropomorphized gods’ susceptibility to sexual desire, yet also in the gods’ role as powers instigating and even embodying different forms of human love and lust. The connection between these two phenomena is complicated further by the possibility of fashioning the relation between gods and humans as erotic, in the context of myth or in worship. In the first section of this chapter I consider Lucian’s True Histories as an example of his resistance to the mentality of conjugality, and I trace how divine authority and exemplarity functioned in works about desire and conjugality circulating right before, during, and just after Lucian’s time. Additionally, I address the persistent tension from Homeric poetry onward between seeing the gods’ love life as removed from the human realm and therefore harmlessly comic, on the one hand, and holding up their pursuits as examples which therefore carry potentially dangerous ethical implications, on the other. The second and third sections of this chapter engage with Dialogues of the Gods, which is one of Lucian’s most popular works in large part because of its appealing mix of scandal and comedy. In their 1905 translation the Fowlers excluded more than a quarter of the pieces “by way of expurgation” on account of their especially risqué content.4 In the second section I focus on Lucian’s adaptation of the story of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite, and its close connections to the style and tone of other media of second-­century CE popular culture, as well as early Christian polemic. In Lucian the divine adultery story is as much about male divine desire as female divine desire, and I chart his representation of the latter throughout the Dialogues of the Gods. In an emphatic expression of the 3. As is the case, for instance, with Plu., Coni. Praec. Richlin 1998 offers a detailed critique, focusing on Foucault. 4. Fowler and Fowler 1905, iii. The expurgated pieces were: D. Deor. 2, 3, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 21.

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gods’ dual role as persons and powers, goddesses are imagined both as desiring and as fostering desire. Lucian’s depiction of the adultery teaches that gods and goddesses are equally overcome by the frightful unruliness of erotic desire, and that the moralizing mentality of wholesome conjugality is a mirage. In the third section I turn to male divine desire. Zeus’ relationship with Ganymede and Hera’s response to it functions as the central episode. Zeus emerges as a highly problematic god on account of his weakness in the face of desire, a source of humor already for Homer and Aristophanes, but also on account of his sexual aggression toward (very) young men and women. The story cycle of Zeus’ “loves” was at least as much of a lightning rod as Aphrodite’s adultery for early Christian authors, and fellow orators like Aelius Aristides also struggled with the sexual violence of myth. Lucian, however, challenges his audience directly: if, supposedly, sex ought to be confined to a (harmonious) marriage, what kind of models are these Olympian gods?5 He revels in shining a bright light on the gods’ immoral behavior toward humans and one another—­ the exact same material that Aristides tries to sweep under the rug—­in order to show that the notion of divine exemplarity is irreconcilable with these violent myths. Foregrounding the gods’ immorality in love and lust is another instrument for Lucian’s critique of the philosophers’ theodicy of good fortune, since this ideology crumbles wherever the premise that the gods are just and philanthropic is not met. The fourth and final section of the chapter centers on consensual erotic interactions between humans and gods. I interpret On the Syrian Goddess, here taken to be genuine, as a reckoning between Aphrodite’s extramarital passion and Hera’s conjugality, and a response to the conjugality toward the gods present in such texts as Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Tales and the Greek romance novels. The focus on exclusivity in erotic relations between humans extended also to the religious realm, where the private worship of one individual divinity was often styled in erotic language.6 Lucian facilitates a comic yet highly sexualized gaze at gods and goddesses in the dialogues, which, to him, is the logical endpoint of such use of erotic language for attachments between humans and gods, and serves as an indictment of it. 5. Levy’s (1976, xix) quip positing “the complete lack of even a pretense at philosophy in the [Dialogues of the] Gods” set the tone for the scholarship on these pieces over the next decades. Branham (1989a, 135–­63) argued that the humor in the dialogues derives from their parodies of the earlier styles and genres that contained the same material, and sees no need to situate them in contemporary conversations about religion. The recent work on D. Deor. by Berdozzo and Nesselrath (2019) reads the work as exemplary of Lucian’s atheistic undermining of religion as such, which is a premise I do not share, and means my interpretation diverges entirely from theirs. 6. Anderson 1993, 200–­3; Zeitlin 2008, 92–­98, 100–­3; Horster 2017, 604–­7.

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Before we continue one caveat needs to be addressed. Laughter and obscenity were linked as intimately in antiquity as they are today, which can be gleaned quickly from a few lines of iambic poetry (Greek or Latin), an Aristophanes comedy, or dirty humorous graffiti from Pompeii. At the same time scholars have shown how sexual humor was instrumental in upholding male dominance and promoting aggressive masculinity in ancient societies,7 while the sexual violence of myth is thought to have served as a counterpart to the everyday suppression of women.8 Ovid’s Metamorphoses have been at the center of debates over how to approach sexual violence in ancient literature,9 which recently spilled over into public media and popular literature.10 Is there, then, anything to laugh at here? A short example from Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods shows that already for him laughter and unease stand side by side when he depicts sexual violence. The passage is a conversation between Apollo and Dionysus that was excluded by the Fowlers in their translation. Apollo asks Dionysus how it can be that Aphrodite’s three sons, Eros, Hermaphroditus, and Priapus are so different, describing the latter as “manly beyond what is proper.”11 Dionysus answers that the reason is that the fathers were different, leaving it up to his interlocutor (and the audience) to fill in that he himself is in fact Priapus’ father. Dionysus then says that he has “a funny story” to tell about Priapus.12 They once got drunk together when he visited Lampsacus,13 and fell asleep in the room where they were having their symposium. Then the following happened: D: In the middle of the night this great guy got up and—­I am ashamed to say it. A: Did he try something, Dionysus? D: Sort of. A: And then what did you do? D: What else could I do but laugh? A: Well done, you did not get mad or violent. He may well be forgiven for trying, you are so good-­looking after all.14   7. Most notably Richlin 1992a [1983].   8. E.g., Curran 1984, 263–­86; Zeitlin 1986, 122–­51; Scafuro 1990, 126–­59; Deacy 1997. On (threats of) sexual violence in the novel see Morales 2008, 52–­54.   9. Richlin 1992b, 158–­79; Newlands 2018. Now framed carefully also in textbooks: Jones 2007, 8–­10. 10. Beek 2016; Waldman 2018; McCarter and Tolentino 2019; MacLaughlin 2019. 11. D. Deor. 3.1: πέρα τοῦ εὐπρεποῦς ἀνδρικός. 12. D. Deor. 3.2: γελοῖον τί. 13. Considered the origin and center of Priapus’ cult, cf. e.g., Ov., Fast. 1.391, 6.345. 14. D. Deor. 3.2: κατ᾽ αὐτάς που μέσας νύκτας ἐπαναστὰς ὁ γενναῖος—­αἰδοῦμαι λέγειν. /

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The exchange closes with Dionysus saying that Apollo should watch out: he is so beautiful that Priapus might well assault him even when sober. Apollo considers this unlikely, because he has arrows to defend himself.15 Lucian lays bare the tensions involved in using the topic of (divine) sexual violence for humor. The victim, Dionysus, introduces what has happened to him as something to laugh about, but then finds it difficult to actually tell the story. He responded to the assault by laughing because he felt there was nothing else he could do. Apollo praises Dionysus, but also blames him for what happened. The notion that Priapus’ attempt is something lighthearted to be laughed off easily is undermined by Apollo’s vehement assertion that such a thing would never happen to him.16 On one level this exchange, like many of the Dialogues of the Gods, is a witty elaboration of some well-­known traits of the gods: Priapus’ cult revolved around obscenity and hypersexuality,17 Dionysus and Apollo are both very beautiful, and Apollo is of course known for his skill in archery. Additionally Dionysus, as we saw in chapter 2, was generally associated with laughter. On another level it functions as a comic vignette with the gods Apollo and Dionysus acting out the parts of mortal men anxious about being forced into sexual submission.18 Dionysus’ victimization, while Apollo is unscathed, resonates with his reputation for effeminacy and foreignness. The fact that Priapus tries to violate his own father underscores the uncontrollable excess of Priapic sexuality.19 Subjecting powerful gods to sexual desire and (fear of) sexual submission or violence is part of Lucian’s comic program of creating humorous incongruity by depicting the gods as all too human. He taps into a long (and at his time still ongoing) tradition of provoking laughter by implicating the divine ἐπείρα σε, Διόνυσε; / τοιοῦτόν ἐστι. / σὺ δὲ τί πρὸς ταῦτα; / τί γὰρ ἄλλο ἢ ἐγέλασα; / εὖ γε, τὸ μὴ χαλεπῶς μηδὲ ἀγρίως· συγγνωστὸς γάρ, εἰ καλόν σε οὕτως ὄντα ἐπείρα. For πειράω as used specifically for (often unwanted) attempts at sexual intercourse see LSJ A iv 2; cf. Levy 1976, 263. I adopt Macleod’s reading of the text here, who follows the β manuscripts for the passage; Nesselrath’s (2019, 25) proposal follows the γ manuscripts. His reading makes the dialogue less lively, and introduces the problem of having ἐπείρασε (instead of ἐπείρα σε), which he gives to Dionysus, without a direct object. 15. D. Deor. 3.2. Here I have used “assault” to translate ἐπιχειρῆσαι. 16. Halliwell (2017, 47) glosses over Dionysus’ “faintly purporting to feel some embarrassment” rather too easily, and he ignores the episode’s incestuous backdrop. 17. On the role of the obscene in Priapic cult see e.g., Richlin 1992a [1983], 9–­10. 18. On this anxiety see e.g., Dover 1989 [1978], 100–­109; Cohen 2003 [1987], 151–­66; Halperin 1990, 15–­40. 19. D. Deor. 3 is an inversion of Pl., Smp. 218C–­219D, where Alcibiades relates how, in spite of his insistence, Socrates refused all night long to make love to him. Aside from a puzzling mention in Salt. 21 (an otherwise unattested Bithynian myth in which Priapus taught Ares how to dance, cf. Harmon 1936, 232), Priapus appears only here in Lucian. For other attempted Priapic assaults see e.g., Ov., Fast. 1.393–­440, Met. 9.347–­48 (Lotis), and Fast. 6.321–­44 (Vesta), cf. Fantham 1983, 201–­9.

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in sexual obscenity, but the juxtaposition of Dionysus’ shame and laughter shows that this is never easy. Like another Ovid, Lucian is as keen on the comedy of gods overcome by violent desire as he is perceptive of the fears of victims of divine lust.20

New Conjugality and Divine Models At some point in the first century CE a man named Bryson wrote a Greek treatise titled Management of the Estate (Oikonomikos Logos). The reason that this text, up until recently, was virtually unknown among scholars of the ancient world is that it survives primarily in Arabic, with only a few fragments of the Greek text remaining. Simon Swain’s extensive study of the treatise, including a critical edition and translation, was published in 2013, and will hopefully increase interest in Bryson. It is in this context that Swain reopened the question of the Veyne-­Foucault hypothesis on marriage in the early Roman Empire: There are, I believe, enough texts available from this period to demonstrate a Foucauldian “valorization” of marriage and (to a lesser extent) of monogamous sexual relations, incumbent on both partners, within marriage, and a concomitant displacement from mainstream intellectual respectability . . . of homoerotic/pederastic relationships.21 What is “new” at this time is the sheer quantity of writings that engage, like Bryson’s work, with marriage as a topic, ranging from texts by (Neo)pythagorean female philosophers, to the letters of Paul the Apostle, the orations of Dio Chrysostom, treatises by Plutarch, Musonius Rufus, and Hierocles, and the Greek novel. Swain rejects the notion that this was an equal or symmetrical marriage; in spite of “the presentation of an affective engagement with the wife or even between the couple,”22 marriage remained an institution which “trapped women as unequal partners,” while also serving “to control, or at least to dispose, men within its rules.”23 20. Cf. Morales 2020, 65–­82. Although the interests in and approaches to myth of Ovid and Lucian coincide often, it is neither necessary nor very likely that Lucian would have read Ovid, see e.g., Habinek 2002, 52–­55; Hopkinson 2008, 200; Berdozzo 2011, 95n5. 21. Swain 2013, 284. 22. Swain 2013, 286. 23. Swain 2013, 287. On the popularity of couples from Greek myth in Roman visual art see Newby 2016, 338–­42.

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Swain supports his analysis of first-­century CE conjugality with an explanation that is economical rather than political. The elites in the Roman East were now characterized, first, by great wealth, and, second, a shared Greek cultural language: “The existence of wealth and the cultural imperative to show it off meant that there was too much at stake not to invest in the success of the one institution which promised the most and risked the most for the future.”24 As a result “the social, cultural, and sexual aspects of marriage became topics of analysis.”25 Swain emphasizes, rightly, that this is a mentality of conjugality: we cannot know about actual sexual practices, and evidence suggests that in real life divorce and discord in marriage remained as common as before.26 Against the background of this mentality of (monogamous) marriage Lucian emerges, as so often, assertively out of step. One of his sets of Dialogues is devoted entirely to conversations between prostitutes (Dialogues of the Hetaerae). And Lucian casts aspersions even on the model marriage of antiquity par excellence in the True Histories, where he depicts Odysseus on the Island of the Blessed plotting an escape from his ever faithful wife Penelope back to Calypso.27 Throughout his novel the realm of sex, gender, and marriage is represented as emphatically messy, in a strong counterpoint to the undying, all-­conquering, and virtuous conjugal love typical of the genre.28 (Although it should be noted that the Latin novels are very skeptical of marriage and sexual trust.)29 True Histories’ narrator relates that the inhabitants of the Moon, herself a female goddess, have created a society without women, in which couples of dominant and submissive male partners procreate and form households.30 On the Island of the Blessed the shades live in full sexual liberty: they have the women in common, the boys give themselves freely, and they have sex out in 24. Swain 2013, 290. 25. Swain 2013, 290. 26. Swain 2013, 44. 27. VH 2.29, 2.35–­36; cf. D. Deor. 2 (following Hdt. 2.145–­46) where Penelope and Hermes serve as Pan’s parents. Von Möllendorff (2000, 418–­20, 452–­57) connects the VH episode to allegorical readings of Od. interpreting the choice between Calypso and Penelope as the choice between carnal pleasures and philosophy, respectively. On the Homeric intertextuality of the passage see further Zeitlin 2001, 245–­46; Kim 2010, 171–­72; Ní Mheallaigh 2014, 243–­45. 28. Konstan 1994, 14–­59, 218–­31; Swain 1996, 118–­31; contra Goldhill (1995, 1–­45) and Morales (2008, 39–­55) who foreground the diversity and complexity of sexual desire in the novels. See now Bird (2021) on the centrality of self-­restraint (sōphrosunē) with regard to erotic desire in the novels. I apply the label “novel” to VH here cognizant of the problems with this categorization, on the issue see Bowersock 1994, 1–­27; cf. Anderson 1996, 555–­61. 29. Tatum 1979, 92–­96; cf. Lateiner 2000. I return to Apul., Met. in section 3 below. On Lucian and Apuleius see also chapter 6. 30. VH 1.22–­24. Cf. Cameron 1998, 141–­42; Georgiadou and Larmour 1998a, 122–­41; 1998b, 320–­25; Deriu 2017, 1–­8.

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the open.31 In seeming contradiction with this freedom, the Island-­dwellers Menelaus and Theseus still bicker over Helen, who in turn strikes up an affair with the notoriously incestuous Cinyras leading to a botched abduction (VH 2.8, 2.25–­26).32 The only character who is presented as happily married on the Island of the Blessed (and in the True Histories as a whole) is the formerly staunch loner Diogenes the Cynic. His wife—­Lucian pokes fun at Diogenes’ notoriously harsh views on prostitution—­is a former sex worker named Laïs (VH 2.18). Although True Histories should not be taken as representative of Lucian’s works as such in this regard, the author clearly was interested in his contemporaries’ (intellectual) preoccupation with confining sex to marriage, and eager to offer opposition to it.33 Sex is a tried and true topic for humor across cultures and historical periods,34 and in antiquity the gods responsible for love and sex were themselves imagined as dangerous but playful. Eros is a child fond of games,35 and Aphrodite’s epithet “smile-­loving” denotes her, if not exactly as fond of laughter, at least as fond of the trickery and play associated with being in love.36 But as soon as gods are supposed to be examples, their debauchery, funny as it may be, carries significant risks. The adultery of Ares and Aphrodite was the most famous ancient Greek story of divine sexual transgression; in the Odyssey this story elicits laughter from the other gods, yet in the centuries that followed it was criticized, as we saw in chapter 2, both for depicting the gods as laughing and for depicting them as adulterous. In Aristophanes’ Clouds the personification Worse Argument says that “if you commit a bit of adultery” you can 31. VH 2.19. Narrator “Lucian” comments: “they are in this respect the most Platonic” (VH 2.19); this is a joke about Pl., R. 457C, and more generally about the role of male homoeroticism in the Platonic corpus; cf. Kuin 2021. 32. On Cinyras see further section 4 below. 33. Additionally the fact that Im. was written about Verus’ mistress is of interest, cf. Vout 2007, 213–­39; I return to this piece in section 4 below. In Merc. cond. the hypocritical attitudes to sexuality in an elite Roman household are a major theme, while Eun. deals harshly with philosophers who cannot accept a eunuch in their ranks. Anderson (1976b, 87) interprets the conspicuous absence of undying (young) love in Lucian as an aesthetic choice: “It is simply that this particular theme did not interest Lucian. . . . He may also have regarded ‘true-­love’ themes as a violation of ‘classical’ taste.” His analysis glosses over Lucian’s interest in the problems of the mentality of conjugality, as laid out in this chapter. 34. Freud (1960 [1905], 44–­45, 106–­39, 275–­76) explained the connection between sex and humor by arguing that laughter provides a release of shame or tensions associated with sexual feelings. As a physiological explanation his account has been rejected (see e.g., Hurley, Dennett, and Adams 2011, 44–­45; Beard 2014, 38–­40), but the concept of release can still serve as a heuristic tool in interpreting many types of laughter, including laughter at sex and obscenity. On humor and the erotic in antiquity see Blondell and Boehringer 2018. 35. E.g., A.R. 3.114–­18; cf. D. Deor. 10.3, 20.2; on these passages see further sections 2 and 3 below. On Eros’ play and his toys see also Kidd 2019, 97–­121. 36. See chapter 2 for a discussion of φιλομμειδής, “smile-­loving.”

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defend yourself by saying that Zeus is also “weaker than love and women, so how can you, as a mortal, be stronger than a god?”37 In the Homeric and Aristophanic contexts the gods’ loss of control in being subject to desire, which is problematic in its own right, is emphasized over the extramarital nature of such desire. In the context of our period’s mentality of conjugality the latter, predictably, also becomes problematic. By the first century CE the argument that because the gods are protectors and guardians of marriage humans should marry and forgo extramarital sex seems to have become a rhetorical topos.38 Any other course of action would offend the gods, because they have cult epithets like “birth-­giving” (genethlios), “bridal” (gamēlios), and “conjugal” (syzygia); we encounter this motif in Dio’s harsh condemnation of brothels in his Euboean Oration,39 in a treatise by Musonius Rufus titled Is Marriage a Handicap for the Pursuit of Philosophy?,40 and in a fragment from Seneca’s treatise On Marriage, which pokes fun at Chrysippus’ use of it,41 suggesting that the topos may have had earlier roots. Evidence from the third and fourth centuries CE shows that over time the motif developed further. In the Rhetoric formerly attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, orators are advised to argue for the benefits of marriage by referring not only to these cult titles, but also to the marriage of Hera and Zeus.42 Libanius, in a rhetorical exercise titled Whether One Should Marry does precisely this, adding the marriage of Hephaestus and Aphrodite as a model (Thes. 1.4). In an ill-­disguised sleight of hand he goes on to exploit the ambiguity of the word “marriage” (gamos), which can also describe extramarital intercourse, advocating that it has brought forth Apollo and Artemis, Ares, Heracles, Helen, and the Dioscuri. Libanius writes: “For the gods not only thought it worthwhile to lie with goddesses, but also came right down to earth to sow the demigods.”43 “Marriage” has become so expansive that almost any mythical content can be mentioned in support of it. Judging by Plutarch’s two major works on marriage, he seems already aware well before Libanius of the full extent of the topos of married-­gods-­as-­ 37. Ar., Nub. 1076–­82: ἐμοίχευσάς τι . . . κἀκεῖνος ὡς ἥττων ἔρωτός ἐστι καὶ γυναικῶν· καίτοι σὺ θνητὸς ὢν θεοῦ πῶς μεῖζον ἂν δύναιο; Cf. Ov., Ars 1.633–­37, where Jupiter is said to look kindly on those making false promises to their girlfriends because they follow his own example. 38. Praechter 1901, 143; cf. Swain 2013, 325–­26. 39. D. Chr. 7.133–­37. On Dio’s conformity to the new conjugality represented by Plutarch and Musonius Rufus see Hawley 2000. For Hēra Gamēlia cf. Aristid., Or. 43.25. 40. Muson. 14.20–­32 Lutz. 41. Sen. F 46 Haase = F 24 Vottero; cf. Gloyn 2017, 83. 42. Ps.-­D.H., Rh. 2.2. 43. Lib., Thes. 1.4: οὐ γὰρ μόνον θεοὶ θεαῖς ἠξίωσαν μίγνυσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ μέχρι γῆς ἦλθον τοὺς ἡμιθέους σπείροντες. Text from Gibson 2008.

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marriage-­protectors, and of its unavoidable contradictions given the adulteries woven into the fabric of traditional myth. In Dialogue on Love he has the interlocutor representing his father start from the same idea but with a much more sophisticated approach. The father, in his lengthy argument for the benefits of conjugal love over male homoerotic love, says: “Nature brings it about that even the gods need Eros, this is why the poets say that ‘earth loves rain,’ and that Heaven loves Earth, and the natural philosophers that sun loves the moon and that they have intercourse and conceive.”44 A gnomic quote from tragedy, followed by a Hesiodic reference and a possible allusion to Democritus, all in support of conjugal erōs. Even though these unions are problematic too—­recipients might have remembered how badly things end for Earth (Gaia) and Heaven (Uranus)—­they feature as forms of divine erōs rather than forced exemplars of gamos qua marriage. In Advice on Marriage Plutarch includes mostly historical examples of married couples, making a predictable exception for the perfect mythological diptych of the good marriage of Penelope and Odysseus versus the cursed union of Helen and Paris. The only divine model introduced is Hera’s effort to reconcile Tethys and Oceanus in the Iliad. By getting them to sleep together, she “will end their undecided quarrels, sending them to their bed to lie together in love”; likewise, spouses should make love (“invoke Aphrodite”) especially when they are fighting.45 Here Plutarch practices the selective, moralizing reading that he argues for in How to Study Poetry (see chapter 2). He takes two lines of Homeric verse that describe how Hera obtains a love-­inciting girdle from Aphrodite by pretending that she wants to help Tethys and Oceanus. Hera’s goal is to help the Greeks on the battlefield by distracting Zeus with lovemaking. In what follows Zeus, as Hera is about to trick him, boastfully lists a priamel of seven of his previous conquests, including his wife, to say that he never desired these women as much as he desires Hera now.46 This particular moment is endearing and comical,47 but when Zeus wakes up he will be livid with his wife (Il. 15.1–­33). Plutarch has used a poetic quotation from an episode that represents anything 44. Plu., Amat. 770A: τοὺς θεοὺς Ἔρωτος ἡ φύσις ἀποδείκνυσι δεομένους. οὕτω γὰρ ἐρᾶν μὲν ὄμβρου γαῖαν οἱ ποιηταὶ λέγουσι καὶ γῆς οὐρανόν, ἐρᾶν δ᾽ ἥλιον σελήνης οἱ φυσικοὶ καὶ συγγίνεσθαι καὶ κυεῖσθαι. The quotation has been interpreted as a Euripidean fragment. For further analysis of the allusions here see Görgemanns et al. 2006, 184–­85. The same debate, heterosexual marriage vs. homoeroticism, especially with younger men, features in the pseudo-­Lucianic dialogue Am., where, in contrast to Plutarch’s piece, the latter is deemed superior; on this piece see section 4 below. 45. Plu., Coni. Praec.143D–­E: καί σφ᾽ ἄκριτα νείκεα λύσω / εἰς εὐνὴν ἀνέσασα ὁμωθῆναι φιλότητι. This is a mash-­up of Il. 14.205 and 209. 46. Il. 14.313–­28; cf. Holmberg 2014, 321. 47. Cf. Willcock 1984, 232; Janko 1991, 201; Lyons 1997, 78–­80; Ahrensdorf 2014, 26. See Sammons (2010, 63–­73) for this passage as “a catalogue of lovers.”

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but divine conjugal harmony. As Plutarch shows, adopting divine models to bolster the mentality of conjugality means walking a tightrope. Perhaps he had been exposed to earlier iterations of ham-­fisted attempts at marshaling the gods as protectors and examples of successful marriage of the kind we find in Libanius, and wanted to avoid this pitfall. Lucian’s approach to the amorous gods of Homeric epic could not be more different, and I propose in this chapter that it should be read as a rebuke to the use of divine models by Plutarch and others. The viability of such an interpretation is supported by a short passage in Menippus. Lucian has the eponymous protagonist describe how as a young man he felt spurred on to commit adulteries after reading about the gods in Homer and Hesiod, only to find out later that such behavior was prohibited by the laws. This plunged Menippus into great perplexity: certainly the gods commit adulteries because they think it right to do so, while lawgivers forbid it because they believe that to be advantageous, how can this be?48 Menippus sounds as if he thinks he is the first to have hit upon this puzzling problem—­a staggering naïveté that is instrumental in Lucian’s comic characterization of him. Lucian’s humor here becomes especially sharp-­edged in juxtaposition with the sincere attempts of Plutarch, Dio, Musonius, and the later rhetoricians to mutually reconcile conjugality, divine exemplarity, and the gods’ behavior in epic. Lucian emphatically does not try to force the gods into a moralizing mold, but foregrounds the disturbing aspects of their behavior, and even adds some. A case in point is his retelling of the adultery of Aphrodite and Ares, to which we now turn, starting from the epic version.

Spectacular Adultery and Desiring Goddesses If one takes the gods’ unquenchable laughter at the playacting of Hephaestus in the Iliad as the first moment, the second Homeric moment of divine unquenchable laughter occurs in the eighth book of the Odyssey.49 Here, too, the gods laugh at other gods making a spectacle of themselves. The Phaeacian bard Demodocus narrates the story of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite and of Hephaestus catching them.50 As we have seen in chapter 2 both the deeds of the 48. Nec. 3. On this piece see further chapter 6. Menippus’ question about justice, laws, and the gods is of course at the center of Pl., Euthphr., on which see chapter 3. 49. On the former see chapter 2. On laughter in Homer in general, human and divine, see Levine 1982, 97–­104. 50. For the large role played by Hephaestus in both moments of Homeric unquenchable laughter see Rinon 2006b, 1–­20.

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adulterers and the laughter of the other gods were picked on by generations of critics of Homer, starting already with Xenophanes. Within Demodocus’ song, I focus on the responses of the three actors in the love triangle, and the mood of the other assembled gods, which are the most relevant for Lucian’s treatment of the adultery. Within the larger episode the internal audience’s reception of the song will be important. As Burkert already argued, the bard’s song in the Odyssey has a humorous, burlesque tone throughout.51 This is accomplished by such vivid details as Ares’ lurking nearby until Hephaestus leaves the house, the nude adulterers stuck in Hephaestus’ crafty web, and the other gods peeking in from the doorway. When Hephaestus returns to inspect his catch, he immediately calls together the other gods, saying: O father Zeus, and all you blessed gods who live forever, look! It is funny [or, better: laughable]—­and unbearable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But come, see where those two are sleeping in my bed, as lovers. I am horrified to see it.52 Hephaestus asks the other gods to come look at the adulterers, making a spectacle out of them. The language of seeing is repeated throughout the passage.53 The miserable, cuckolded Hephaestus—­he says that Aphrodite has dishonored him because he is lame, and wishes that he had never been born (Od. 8.308–­12)—­describes the spectacle as something to laugh at, inviting the other gods to shame the adulterers in this way. Famously Hephaestus’ words here can also be read to mean “deeds not to be laughed at” (erg’ agelasta) by postulating an elision of the last syllable of “deeds” (erga) and adding that syllable to turn “to be laughed at” (gelasta) into its opposite, “not to be laughed at” (agelasta). The debate over these lines has focused on the overall mood of the passage, with scholars favoring a positive mood choosing the reading without elision, and scholars focusing on Hephaestus’ distress argu51. Burkert 2001c [1960]; 2003a [1982]. 52. Od. 8.306–­7, 313–­14: Ζεῦ πάτερ ἠδ’ ἄλλοι μάκαρες θεοὶ αἰὲν ἐόντες, / δεῦθ’, ἵνα ἔργα γελαστὰ καὶ οὐκ ἐπιεικτὰ ἴδησθε . . . / ἀλλ’ ὄψεσθ’, ἵνα τώ γε καθεύδετον ἐν φιλότητι, / εἰς ἐμὰ δέμνια βάντες· ἐγὼ δ’ ὁρόων ἀκάχημαι. The translation is Wilson 2018, with modifications marked in square brackets. 53. Cf. Od. 8.327–­28, 341, 366. On the visual element of the episode, especially in light of the bard’s blindness, see further Graziosi and Haubold 2005, 81–­82; Lovatt 2013, 46–­47.

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ing for elision.54 But even when choosing against this elision (as I do), one still has to decide whether to interpret “to be laughed at” (gelasta) as either “laughable” (worthy of scorn) or “funny” (like a good joke). In fact, the mismatch between Hephaestus’ anger—­which is why I argue he would call the deeds “laughable” rather than “funny”—­and the reaction of the other gods hinges precisely on this distinction. After Hephaestus’ short speech Demodocus’ song continues: The goddesses stayed home, from modesty. The blessed gods who give good things were standing inside the doorway, and they burst out laughing, at what a clever trap Hephaestus set.55 It is improper for the female divinities to see Ares and Aphrodite caught in flagrante,56 but the other gods burst out in uncontrollable laughter on seeing the trap. An unnamed god offers, almost as an explanation of why the trap is funny, that the slow, lame blacksmith has prevented the fast warrior Ares from getting away with his crimes—­it is a comic reversal.57 But this anonymous, moralizing commentary is immediately subverted by Hermes and Apollo. The latter asks the messenger god if he would want to lie with Aphrodite, even in chains (Od. 8.335–­37). Hermes’ answer is deliberately outrageous: he says that he would be happy to be bound by three times as many chains and to have even the goddesses looking on, as long as he can sleep with Aphrodite (Od. 8.338–­42). In reaction to Hermes’ witty reply “laughter rose among the deathless gods”—­again.58 Hermes has said out loud what the other gods were thinking. The spectacle of Ares and Aphrodite caught in the net has, contrary to what Hephaestus intended, been a funny, titillating pleasure to them.59 Demodocus, remarkably, makes no mention of how Ares and Aphrodite respond to any of this. He describes how they went to bed, both eager to make love (Od. 8.292–­95), and then, once the net has tightened, realize that they 54. So Burkert (2001c [1960]), for instance, reads ἔργα γελαστά, while Garvie (1994, 301–­2) and Halliwell (2008, 80–­82; cf. 2017, 44) read ἔργ’ ἀγέλαστα. Brown (1989, 283–­93) also adopts ἔργα γελαστά, but in his view Hephaestus gets what he wants: punitive laughter. West (2017, 163) prints ἔργ’ ἀγέλαστα. 55. Od. 8.324–­27: θηλύτεραι δὲ θεαὶ μένον αἰδοῖ οἴκοι ἑκάστη. / ἔσταν δ᾽ ἐν προθύροισι θεοί, δωτῆρες ἐάων· / ἄσβεστος δ’ ἄρ’ ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι / τέχνας εἰσορόωσι πολύφρονος Ἡφαίστοιο. 56. On the goddesses’ modesty see O’Higgins 2003, 45–­46; Lovatt 2013, 47. 57. Cf. Alden 1997, 528. 58. Od. 8.343: ἐν δὲ γέλως ὦρτ’ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν. 59. Od. 8.334–­43 was excised by a scholiast on the basis of its “unfitting content” (ἀπρέπειαν), scholia vetera ad loc. Dindorf 1855. In fact the entire song of Demodocus used to be viewed as an interpolation. On this debate see Hunzinger 1997, 125–­38, cf. Hunter 2012, 96.

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are stuck (Od. 8.299). After Poseidon has brokered a settlement between Ares and Hephaestus (Od. 8.343–­59), the adulterers jump up and each go their own way (Od. 8.360–­67). It is important to emphasize, with Friedländer, that the actors in the love triangle have in no way been diminished by the laughter of the other gods. Demodocus mentions Hephaestus’ strength as he loosens the chains, Ares simply goes back to his ancestral Thrace, and Aphrodite returns to Paphos as desirable as ever—­which Hermes’ quip had already shown. The gods’ uncontrollable laughter epitomizes the frivolous comedy of the scene, and, in the larger context of Homeric epic, is emblematic of their divinity.60 The Homeric narrator tells us that the Phaeacians and Odysseus enjoyed Demodocus’ song. This stands in sharp contrast to the bard’s previous song and the one that is to follow, which both reduce Odysseus to sorrowful tears.61 External audiences of Homeric epic have two internal example audiences exhibiting laughter and joy in response to the spectacle of Aphrodite and Ares being caught in the net. The laughter of the Homeric gods, as Friedländer argued unequivocally, is indeed a signal for us to join in.62 Thus, the Odyssey offers a strongly articulated foundational moment in Greek literature where the erotic desires and mishaps of the gods are an occasion for naughty hilarity for the audience. In his rendering of Demodocus’ song in Dialogues of the Gods Lucian has latched on to the gods’ laughter first and foremost. The exchange, between Apollo and Hermes, opens as follows: A: Why are you laughing, Hermes? H: Because I saw the funniest thing, Apollo. A: Tell me, so that hearing the story I can laugh with you.63 60. Friedländer 1969 [1934], 4–­5, 9; cf. Calhoun 1939, 22; Griffin 1980, 200; Branham 1989a, 137–­40; Rinon 2006a, 215–­16; Hunter 2012, 91–­95. Conversely, Olson (1989, 143) and Lovatt (2013, 47) interpret Aphrodite’s bath (Od. 8.362–­66) as a purification, but see Brillet-­Dubois (2011, 112) who sees it as a witty inversion of the motif in which a goddess while washing to prepare herself for her consort is subject to the (human) male gaze. This is the only place in Od. where Aphrodite is described as “lover of smiles,” which was already connected to the laughter in the scene at Eust. 1.303.22 Stallbaum; cf. Garvie 1994, 310–­11; Halliwell 2008, 84. Alden (1997, cf. Scodel 2002, 86) argues that the gods laugh at Hephaestus because he accepts financial compensation, instead of dueling with Ares, but the gods laugh before Hephaestus accepts the money. 61. Od. 8.367–­68: αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς / τέρπετ᾽ ἐνὶ φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἀκούων ἠδὲ καὶ ἄλλοι /Φαίηκες. Compare with Od. 8.86–­88 and 521–­22. De Jong (2001, 206–­8) has argued that Demodocus purposefully picked a humorous song to relieve the tension that had arisen between Odysseus and the Phaeacians during the games. Pace Schmidt (1998, 195–­219) who argued that the immoral laughter of the gods is intended to mirror the immoral behavior of the Phaeacians. 62. Friedländer (1969 [1934], 4): “Die unbeteiligten Götter lachen ihr unauslöschliches Gelächter und geben damit den Hörern das Zeichen, es ihnen nachzutun.” Halliwell (2017, 45) argues, pointing to “Poseidon’s refusal to laugh” in Od. 8.344 and Hephaestus’ distress, that the audience is “in an uncertain position vis-­à-­vis divine laughter.” Yet, Poseidon may well have laughed at Od. 8.326; he does not join in the second time because by now he wants to solve the conflict. 63. D. Deor. 21.1: τί γελᾷς, ὦ Ἑρμῆ; / ὅτι γελοιότατα, ὦ Ἄπολλον, εἶδον. / εἰπὲ οὖν, ὡς καὶ αὐτὸς ἀκούσας ἔχω ξυγγελᾶν.

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Lucian sets the scene in the doorway of Hephaestus’ room. Apollo has arrived late, so he has to hear from Hermes about the spectacle, which (temporarily) puts him in the same position as the Lucianic audience.64 Unlike Demodocus in the Odyssey, Hermes, as narrator, goes into some detail about how the adulterers reacted to being caught: “She, for of course she was naked, was ashamed not to be able to cover herself, Ares at first tried to escape by breaking the cords . . . and then kept begging.”65 Apollo asks what Hephaestus did next, Hermes answers that he called all the other gods together for the spectacle, and again focuses his lens on the adulterers: “They are both lying there naked, bound together, face down, and blushing. I found it a most delightful spectacle, with them being almost in the act.”66 Apollo then asks whether Hephaestus was not ashamed “to show the dishonoring of his marriage,”67 but Hermes responds: “By Zeus, he is actually standing over them, laughing.”68 The exchange closes with Hermes saying that he envies Ares for being shackled to Aphrodite, as he challenges Apollo to take a look and not be affected in the same way (D. Deor. 21.2, cf. D. Deor. 17.3). This implies, of course, that the amorous gods are still shackled together. Lucian’s most conspicuous innovation is that Hephaestus himself is laughing over his “dishonored” marriage, here explicitly marked as such. At the same time he makes the adulterers more anthropomorphic than their Homeric counterparts, by emphasizing their helplessness and shame69—­just as he did with Dionysus and Apollo in their conversation about Priapus. Are they ashamed to be caught in adultery, or are they just ashamed to be on display completely naked? In light of the interest in marriage in Lucian’s time which I have sketched in section 1 above, Hephaestus’ transformation from aggrieved to amused sounds a discordant note to say the least. In order to understand the expanded description of the adulterers we need to contextualize Lucian’s version of the story with our evidence for the treatment of the adultery in other media of the period. Branham has already noted the ekphrastic nature of Hermes’ report to Apollo: he is painting a picture with words for him and for the audience.70 Hermes’ 64. Lucian has a strong preference for scenes with only two speakers, because of the constraints of performing a dialogue as a solo performer. Dialogues with more speakers are broken up into subscenes of two speakers, see chapter 1. 65. D. Deor. 21.1: ἐκείνη μὲν οὖν—­καὶ γὰρ ἔτυχε γυμνὴ οὖσα—­οὐκ εἶχεν ὅπως ἐγκαλύψαιτο αἰδουμένη, ὁ δὲ Ἄρης τὰ μὲν πρῶτα διαφυγεῖν ἐπειρᾶτο καὶ ἤλπιζε ῥήξειν τὰ δεσμά, ἔπειτα δὲ . . . ἱκέτευεν. 66. D. Deor. 21.2: οἱ δὲ γυμνοὶ ἀμφότεροι κάτω νενευκότες ξυνδεδεμένοι ἐρυθριῶσι, καὶ τὸ θέαμα ἥδιστον ἐμοὶ ἔδοξε μονονουχὶ αὐτὸ γινόμενον τὸ ἔργον. Berdozzo (2019a, 102n337) notes that, while in Od. 8.295–­96 the gods only get caught in the net once they lie down to go to sleep after intercourse, in D. Deor. 21.1 they get stuck during, which contributes to Hermes’ excitement. 67. D. Deor. 21.2: ἐπιδεικνύμενος τὴν αἰσχύνην τοῦ γάμου. 68. D. Deor. 21.2: μὰ Δί᾽, ὅς γε καὶ ἐπιγελᾷ ἐφεστὼς αὐτοῖς. 69. Cf. Berdozzo 2019a, 103n339; Halliwell (2017, 46) ignores this. 70. Branham 1989a, 140, 145–­46. For ekphrasis elsewhere in Lucian see especially Dom., Im.,

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remark that the adultery is a “most delightful spectacle” might well have reminded Lucian’s audience members of depictions of the scene on sarcophagi, in wall p ­ ainting, and on terracotta medallions.71 Additionally, the adultery was a topic for pantomime, which, just like epideictic oratory, was a popular and widely accessible performance genre in Lucian’s lifetime (see also chapter 1).72 In his On the Dance, probably performed in Antioch when Lucius Verus held court there,73 Lucian has the interlocutor Lycinus describe how a pantomime dancer depicted the scene: Helius tattling, Hephaestus plotting, and both of them, Aphrodite and Ares, in chains, caught in Hephaestus’ net, and each of the gods standing by, and Aphrodite ashamed, but Ares afraid and begging.74 The dancer’s skill in a pantomime performance was measured especially by his ability to depict characters’ emotions. Given the overlap between the descriptions—­“Aphrodite ashamed” and “Ares begging”—­Lucian’s addition of the emotional responses of Ares and Aphrodite in Dialogues of the Gods seems to have been inspired by, and meant to evoke, pantomime performance.75 In mime, where performers did not wear masks and women acted the female and Zeux. This topic has sparked much scholarly interest, see esp. Maffei 1994, xv–­lxxxvi; Goldhill 2001, 160–­67, 184–­93; Newby 2002; Dobrov 2002; Borg 2004; Pretzler 2009; Cistaro 2009, 9–­55; Pigeaud 2014. 71. The popularity of the adultery as a visual motif stands in sharp contrast to the scanty representation of Od. 8 in the papyri (Cribiore 2001, 194–­97), and the story may have been known primarily through its reception in visual art and literature. The following examples of the adultery in visual art all include the other gods as onlookers, and may likely be “read” as humorous: a second-­century CE Roman sarcophagus from Grottaferrata, cf. Schlichtermann 1992, 16–­17, with plates 4 and 5 (on the connections between pantomime and sarcophagus imagery see Huskinson 2008, 87–­98); a first-­century CE wall painting from Pompeii from the house of Lucretius Fronto, cf. Baldassarre and Pugliese Carratelli 1991, 1016–­18, no. 94; Clarke 1991, 155–­56; 2007, 170; a second-­century CE terracotta medallion from Lyons, which Clarke (2007, 171) suggests may have been a mime souvenir or ticket stub (see below in this section). A fourth-­century CE wall painting of the scene from the house of Serenus in Amheida (Trimithis) underlines the durability of the motif in art as comic, cf. Leahy 1980, 359–­60; McFadden 2014; 2019; Schulz 2015. For Ovid on this episode see Dance 2020, 413–­23. 72. Lada-­Richards 2007, 16, 138; cf. Hall 2008, 1–­9; Webb 2008, 33–­34. 73. Jones 1986, 68–­75; cf. Lada-­Richards 2007, 12–­18; Webb 2008, 7, 61–­89, 148–­49. 74. Salt. 63: Ἥλιον μηνύοντα, καὶ Ἥφαιστον ἐπιβουλεύοντα καὶ τοῖς δεσμοῖς ἀμφοτέρους, τήν τε Ἀφροδίτην καὶ τὸν Ἄρη, σαγηνεύοντα, καὶ τοὺς ἐφεστῶτας θεοὺς ἕκαστον αὐτῶν, καὶ αἰδουμένην μὲν τὴν Ἀφροδίτην, ὑποδεδοικότα δὲ καὶ ἱκετεύοντα τὸν Ἄρη. I follow Harmon (1936) here for ὑποδεδοικότα over Macleod’s (1980) ὑποδεδυκότα. On the larger context of this passage within Salt. and pantomime see Webb 2008, 80–­83. Compare Lib., Or. 64.113 on the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite in pantomime, and possibly also Ov., Met. 4.189, cf. Lada-­Richards 2013, 114n33. 75. Cf. Bompaire 1958, 731–­32n1.

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parts, adultery was a popular theme and it depicted gods and heroes: the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite may well have been in their repertoire also.76 One more element must be added. Early Christian authors living and writing at the same time as Lucian were also quite interested in the story of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite and Hephaestus’ trap. Aristides of Athens in his Apology writes about Ares: “Finally, while committing adultery with Aphrodite, he was bound by baby Eros and Hephaestus. How then is he a god who was subject to desire, and a warrior, and a prisoner and an adulterer?”77 He goes on to abuse Aphrodite for her many sexual transgressions (Apol. 11), and concludes that “humans, taking their starting point from their gods, have committed all lawlessness, lasciviousness and ungodliness.”78 Early Christian authors (but also Aelius Aristides) bitterly criticized these danced performances for their perceived threat to sexual morality. They accuse the dancers of prostitution and moral depravity in general, and argue that the physical sensuality of the performance, regardless of content, incites improper desire in the audience. Performances featuring an already scandalous scene like the divine adultery, then, were especially hair-­raising: in his Oration to the Greeks Tatian includes an impassioned attack on the pantomime dancer for “sometimes impersonating Aphrodite, sometimes Apollo,” and for being “a rehearser of adultery.”79 The specific choices that Lucian has made in his Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaes­tus scene place it at the nexus of second-­century CE debates about sexuality, morality, and religion. An ekphrasis of a comic sexual scene in which the divine interlocutors themselves are aroused encourages the listening audience to fill out the image in their mind’s eye, and they were drawing on a rich visual arsenal to do so. The result is startling: in a stark perversion of her role as divine power fostering lust and love among humans for one another, the audience gazes desirously, albeit in their imagination, on the goddess of beauty and sexuality nude and in the act. Critics of danced performances were worried at the time both about how these affected viewers’ bodies during the event, and about viewers being incited to imitate the depicted behaviors afterward. Lucian borrows from the visual language of dance to show the gods themselves 76. Reynolds 1946; McKeown 1979, 71–­84; Fantham 1983, 200–­201; 1989, 157–­58; Kehoe 1984, 89–­106; Wiseman 2008, 175–­86; Webb 2008, 95–­115. 77. Aristid. Ath., Apol. 10 = ps. John Damascene 247: ὕστερον δὲ αὐτὸν μοιχεύοντα τὴν Ἀφροδίτην δεθῆναι αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ νηπίου Ἔρωτος καὶ ὑπὸ Ἡφαίστου. πῶς οὖν θεός ἐστιν ὁ ἐπιθυμητὴς καὶ πολεμιστὴς καὶ δέσμιος καὶ μοιχός; Text from Vona 1950. 78. Aristid. Ath., Apol. 11 = ps. John Damascene 248: ὅθεν λαμβάνοντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἀφορμὴν ἀπὸ τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν ἔπραττον πᾶσαν ἀνομίαν καὶ ἀσέλγειαν καὶ ἀσέβειαν. 79. Tatianus, Ad Gr. 22: ποτὲ μὲν ὡς Ἀφροδίτην, ποτὲ δὲ ὡς Ἀπόλλωνα γινόμενον . . . μοιχείας ὑπομνηματιστήν. Text from Goodspeed 1915. Cf. Webb 2008, 166, 184–­85.

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affected by erotic spectacle, and simultaneously incites in his audience a lascivious human gaze at divine beauty.80 He thereby offers a mocking, two-­pronged provocation of his contemporaries’ concerns about arousal caused by dance and their preoccupation with humans imitating (lack of) divine virtue. In Dialogues of the Gods, however, Aphrodite is not only desirable and desired, but also a desiring subject, particularly in the pieces leading up to the spectacle of the trap.81 If Lucian performed these earlier exchanges featuring Aphrodite together with the dialogue about Hephaestus’ trap, as I suggest,82 the former would function as a backstory rendering Aphrodite’s desire at least as important as Ares’. In an earlier conversation between Apollo and Hermes in Dialogues of the Gods the latter describes how Aphrodite is “around Ares most of the time, and loves him.”83 In an exchange shortly following this one, Aphrodite asks Selene why she stops and even leaves her course to go look at her beloved Endymion. In her answer Selene wittily puns on Eros’ name: “Ask (erōta) your own son, Aphrodite, he is the cause of all this.”84 Aphrodite responds commiserating with Selene, recalling how Eros made her fall in love with Anchises and Adonis. She, his mother, has threatened to clip his wings, and beats his behind with her sandal to punish him—­all to no avail (D. Deor. 19.1). Aphrodite then asks Selene if Endymion is beautiful, if so, her plight will be all the worse. Selene, in her response, slips into a charming revery about how beautiful Endymion looks when he sleeps, “his right arm framing his beautiful face just so, relaxed in sleep breathing his ambrosian breath.”85 Then she tells Aphrodite how she approaches him quietly on tiptoe, and breaks off her narrative saying: “You know how it goes. Why tell you what happens next? Except that I am being destroyed by love.”86 80. The same lascivious human gaze at divine beauty takes center stage in Dear. Iud., on which see section 4 below. 81. The D. Deor. as a whole have a strong thematic coherence, and a cast of recurring characters. Different orderings have been transmitted in the manuscript tradition. I follow here, with Macleod’s OCT, the γ manuscripts. While we cannot be sure that this goes back to Lucian himself (cf. Levy 1976, xviii; Hayes and Nimis 2015, xiii; Berdozzo 2019b, 7), he must have organized them in some way, and this sequence frequently lets the individual dialogues play off one another well. 82. Cf. Berdozzo 2019b, 5–­6. Compare also Relihan’s (1987, 189–­92) discussion of the internal coherence of D. mort., Anderson’s (1976a; 1976b) extensive work on recurring themes in Lucian, and, recently, Hafner (2019) on intratextuality within Lucian’s corpus generally. On Lucianic performance see further chapter 1. 83. D. Deor. 17.3: περὶ τὸν Ἄρη ἔχει τὰ πολλὰ κἀκείνου ἐρᾷ. 84. D. Deor. 19.1: Ἐρώτα, ὦ Ἀφροδίτη, τὸν σὸν υἱόν, ὅς μοι τούτων αἴτιος. The imperative ἐρώτα and Eros’ name in the accusative (Ἔρωτα) are distinguishable only by the accent, cf. Berdozzo 2019a, 101n303. 85. D. Deor. 19.2: ἡ δεξιὰ δὲ περὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἐς τὸ ἄνω ἐπικεκλασμένη ἐπιπρέπῃ τῷ προσώπῳ περικειμένη, ὁ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου λελυμένος ἀναπνέῃ τὸ ἀμβρόσιον ἐκεῖνο ἆσθμα. I follow Nesselrath (2019) here for ἐπιπρέπῃ / ἀναπνέῃ over Macleod’s (1987) ἐπιπρέπει / ἀναπνέει. 86. D. Deor. 19.2: οἶσθα· τί οὖν ἄν σοι λέγοιμι τὰ μετὰ ταῦτα; πλὴν ἀπόλλυμαί γε ὑπὸ τοῦ ἔρωτος.

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The dynamic between Selene, Aphrodite, and the audience is very similar to what happens between Hermes, Apollo, and the audience in Lucian’s version of the adultery: in both cases one god(dess) uses highly visualizing language to describe an erotic scene to the other god(dess),87 and, in both cases, to the audience. However, where the male gods talk about blushing naked gods, twisting their bodies practically in the act, here we get an erotic aposiopesis.88 Even on Lucian’s raucous Olympus there are certain things goddesses will not say. The audience is, again, prompted to gaze in their minds’ eye at beautiful gods about to make love, though this time painted with the brush of female desire. The next piece in Dialogues of the Gods, finally, bridges the two erotic fantasies by its placement and its content. Selene’s last word in the previous conversation was “by love” (erōtos), and the following exchange starts with Aphrodite directly addressing her son Eros. She says: “Watch what you are doing! I am not talking about what you get up to on earth, where you convince humans to act against their own interests and those of others, but about what you do here in heaven.”89 Aphrodite goes on to list Eros’ tricks on Zeus, Selene, and herself, and then offers a lengthy account of Rhea’s ill-­starred love for Attis. She dwells on it because it is a particularly outrageous exploit on Eros’ part—­“you convinced Rhea, an old woman and mother of so many gods, to love a boy and to desire that young Phrygian”—­and fears for her son’s safety, in case the scary, violent goddess orders her followers to tear him to pieces.90 This is also why Aphrodite is not upset with Eros for affecting humans with desire: they cannot harm him anyway. Eros tells his mother not to worry, Rhea has no time to go after him because she is “entirely wrapped up in Attis.”91 He then teases Aphrodite, asking her: “Or, would you like to no longer love Ares, and for him to no longer love you?”92 Aphrodite, defeated, concludes: “How smart you are, you have everyone in your power.”93 The next dialogue starts with Apollo asking Hermes why he is laughing—­we know his answer. 87. Levy (1976, 289) and Maffei (1994, xxi n35) connect this description to depictions of Endymion in art. On Endymion as subject to a female sexual gaze see Vout 2007, 103–­4. 88. A device which, of course, actually heightens the sexual tension, as in e.g., Ov., Am. 1.5.25, cf. McKeown 1989, 118–­19. Compare in Lucian also DDS 28, cf. Lightfoot 2003, 424–­25; see for DDS also section 4 below. Compare ps.-­D. Chr. 37.33 for different standards for male and female goddesses in (alleged) love affairs. 89. D. Deor. 20.1: ὅρα οἷα ποιεῖς· οὐ τὰ ἐν τῇ γῇ λέγω, ὁπόσα τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἀναπείθεις καθ᾽ αὑτῶν ἢ κατ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἐργάζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. The portrayal of Aphrodite here, and throughout D. Deor. owes much to h. Ven., cf. Strolonga 2016. 90. D. Deor. 20.1: τὴν Ῥέαν αὐτὴν γραῦν ἤδη καὶ μητέρα τοσούτων θεῶν οὖσαν ἀνέπεισας παιδεραστεῖν καὶ τὸ Φρύγιον ἐκεῖνο μειράκιον ποθεῖν. Rhea’s involvement with Attis here stems from her identification with Cybele. On Attis’ cult and mythology in the postclassical period see Bremmer 2004. On Rhea and Attis in DDS see section 4 below. 91. D. Deor. 20.2: ὅλη οὖσα ἐν τῷ Ἄττῃ. 92. D. Deor. 20.2: ἢ θέλεις σύ, ὦ μῆτερ, αὐτὴ μηκέτι ἐρᾶν μήτε σὲ τοῦ Ἄρεως μήτε ἐκεῖνον σοῦ; 93. D. Deor. 20.2: ὡς δεινὸς εἶ καὶ κρατεῖς ἁπάντων.

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The accounts of the “loves” of Selene and Rhea reflect a detailed engagement with female experiences of love and sexuality. In this regard they partake of the interest in reciprocal love that we also find in the novels and in philosophical treatises of the time: Lucian’s representation may have been influenced in some way by what I called the age’s new conjugal mentality above, with the old goddess Rhea playing the part of Plutarch’s Ismenodora to her Attis, the older matron in love with her young Bacchon in the Dialogue on Love. Importantly, however, these two structurally similar relationships are evaluated very differently in each author. Lucian’s Aphrodite presents the age difference negatively, mockingly using the verb “to love boys” (paiderastein) for Rhea, which typically refers to men desiring and pursuing adolescent or even younger boys.94 In Plutarch the union of Ismenodora and Bacchon is praised in spite of the inverted age difference, which functions as an a fortiori rhetorical strategy. That is, if such a peculiar heterosexual union can be praised over male homoerotic love, more normative conjugal relationships will “win” easily. Ismenedora’s (conjugal) desire is elevated in Dialogue on Love, while the pining of Rhea, Selene, and of Aphrodite herself makes them look silly in Lucian. The reason that Ares and Aphrodite are ashamed in Lucian’s rendering of the adultery is that their passion has made them a laughingstock. In Dialogues of the Gods Eros is a pest, and desire an affliction. Just as he causes humans to act against their best interests, Eros also makes fools out of gods and goddesses. These exchanges are highly comic, and they play on the shared plight of humans and gods in the face of desire. The perversity of directing the audience’s eroticizing gaze to divine bodies is accompanied by the message that the gods cannot control their desires either, offering a built-­in apologetic. Lucian’s comedy calls out any and all foolhardy attempts to control desire, and the aspirational, optimistic view of love that the mentality of conjugality presupposes; additionally, the notion that the gods might function as dignified, virtuous models for the heterosexual, monogamous bond is demolished entirely. All of us are nothing but love’s playthings, and Lucian’s gods know this well.

Sexual Violence and the “Loves” of Zeus Terence’s Eunuch contains, even by the standards of Roman comedy, a rather horrifying rape scene. The young man Chaerea pretends to be a eunuch to gain 94. Except for Sacr. 7 where it also refers to Rhea. Remarkably, Rhea’s plight is here juxtaposed with Selene’s infatuation and Aphrodite’s adultery, which are presented as lesser evils.

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access to the household where a woman he desires, named Pamphila, also lives. In the house, as he tells his friend afterward, he saw a painting of Zeus raping Danaë in the form of a shower of gold. He reasoned with himself that if Zeus, the thunder-­god, could rape Danaë, he could rape Pamphila: “Could I, a little human, then not do this?”95 He gets himself assigned to Pamphila’s room, locks it, and rapes the woman who had just fallen asleep. Terence’s Chaerea has put into practice the suggestion by Worse Argument in Aristophanes’ Clouds. But while in Clouds Zeus’ example is to be used to justify adultery after the fact, in Eunuch Chaerea is emboldened beforehand by Zeus’ act, here mediated through a painting, to commit rape. The same thought process lies behind both passages: if even the father of the gods commits adultery or sexual violence, how are mere mortals supposed to restrain themselves from such behavior? Augustine, a few centuries later, writes: “In so many places he is painted, poured, hammered, sculpted, written, read, acted, sung, and danced, Jupiter, that is, committing such terrible adulteries.”96 When in the fourth century CE he looks around him Augustine still sees a lot of Zeus, or in any case too much for his taste; and when there are Zeus stories they have to do with his adulteries. The good pantomime dancer, says Lucian’s Lycinus, will know “first and foremost the loves of the gods, and of Zeus himself, and how many forms he changed himself into.”97 The “loves” of Zeus constitute narrative units that are transmitted all through antiquity (and beyond) because of the charm and humor that are intrinsic to his transformations. Johan Huizinga in his Homo ludens argued that the playful nature of ancient Greek myth as such resided largely in Zeus’ transformations.98 Chaerea’s dress-­up as a eunuch resonates with Zeus’ disguises, and is a near universal feature of comedy plots. Yet transformations are also unsettling: they can serve as a cover for and a means of evil-­doing. Zeus’ shape-­shifting in order to commit sexual violence was an indestructible story in ancient mimetic art, and concerns about the effects of mimetic art on human morality were equally persistent, especially in the case of the behavior of supposedly exemplary gods. 95. Ter., Eu. 591: ego homuncio hoc non facerem? Cf. Barsby 1999, 195–­99. See Papaioannou (2014, 104–­7) for the close parallel with Men., Samia 589–­600, though there the element of the artwork providing the impetus is missing. Compare also Longus 2.39.2–­4, where Chloe is not satisfied with Daphnis’ vow of fidelity by Pan because the promiscuous god would not enforce it. 96. August., Ep. 91.5: tot locis pingitur, funditur, tunditur, sculpitur, scribitur, legitur, agitur, cantatur, saltatur Iuppiter adulteria tanta committens. Text from Baxter 1930. In the same letter he discusses the rape scene from Ter., Eu. (see above in this section), compare also C. D. 2.7, where he laments that people are more likely to contemplate “the deeds of Jupiter” than “the teaching of Plato” or the “opinions of Cato.” 97. Salt. 59: πρὸ πάντων δὲ τὰ περὶ τοὺς ἔρωτας αὐτῶν καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Διὸς καὶ εἰς ὅσα ἑαυτὸν μετεσκεύασεν. 98. Huizinga 1950 [1938], 141.

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We have seen in the previous section how the story of Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus functioned in Lucian’s time as a foil for thinking about the strength and importance of the conjugal bond. In this section we turn to the story of Zeus, Ganymede, and Hera, which provided an arena to confront the heightened anxiety about homoeroticism and pederasty. Lucian’s outsized interest in this episode is a rebuke to the mentality of conjugality in its own right, but he also uses it to highlight the violence committed by the gods toward humans to fulfill their erotic desires. Gods are not only bad examples for conjugality because of their adulteries and lack of self-­restraint in the face of desire, but, Lucian shows, these violent myths are fundamentally irreconcilable with divine benevolence toward humans and their moral exemplarity. The longest piece in Dialogues of the Gods by far is a conversation between Ganymede and Zeus. As compared to his contemporaries Lucian took an excessive interest in the story of Zeus’ snatching the beautiful Trojan boy up to heaven to be his eromenos.99 The humor of the dialogue seems to derive primarily from Ganymede’s naïveté: he has no idea who Zeus is, what ambrosia is, or what is about to happen to him. Unlike Lucian’s audience he does not know the myth about him, and he seems to be—­for just another moment—­strikingly unfamiliar with homosexual sex, or even sex in general.100 But, why would a prepubescent boy from Mt. Ida know these things? The dialogue emphasizes his childishness throughout: the boy wants to play with other kids his age, misses his father but is also worried about getting scolded, and really likes his milk. At the same time Ganymede knowingly hits the nail on the head when he says to Zeus: “I thought you were just some slave trader.”101 The father of the gods may not be seeking to turn a profit, but he did kidnap a child to use him for sex and other services. The risk of being kidnapped and sold into slavery   99. Lucian mentions Ganymede seventeen times; see other than D. Deor.: Icar. 2, 27, 34; Deor. Conc. 8; I. trag. 20; Dear. Iud. 1, 6. 100. His ignorance can be compared to the pastoral innocence of Daphnis and Chloe in Longus’ novel, cf. Winkler 1990, 101–­26. At the same time, this Ganymede is certainly depicted as being much younger, cf. Richlin 2015, 367. The story of Ganymede is treated first at Il. 20.231–­35, but without any erotic overtones. In h. Ven. 202–­6 Zeus is said to have snatched Ganymede on account of his beauty, and in Ibyc. F 289a Zeus’ seizing Ganymede is compared to the rape of Tithonus by Dawn. This is how the relationship is then defined afterward, e.g., Pi., O. 1.40–­45, 10.105; A.R. 3.115–­18; Ov., Met. 10.155–­61. At Ar., Pax 722–­24 Trygaeus is worried about what his dung beetle will eat when he has to stay in heaven. Hermes replies: “He will feed on the ambrosia of Ganymede” (τὴν τοῦ Γανυμήδους ἀμβροσίαν σιτήσεται). The lines have been interpreted as an obscene joke implying that Zeus had anal sex with Ganymede, Sommerstein 2009, 83, cf. Lear 2014, 112, 121. Also, the Middle Comedy playwrights Antiphanes, Eubulus, and Alcaeus are all reported to have written a Ganymede, Nesselrath 1990a, 209–­12; cf. Konstantakos 2002, 158–­59. 101. D. Deor. 10.1: σὺ δὲ ἀνδραποδιστής τις εἶναί μοι δοκεῖς. Compare D. mar. 8.3 where Amymone uses the term for Poseidon as she is being carried off by him, cf. Richlin 2015, 367.

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runs as a common thread through the ancient novel, but also loomed large in Roman comedy; and, in Lucian’s representation of him, this is something that young Ganymede knew to be worried about. The dramatic irony of Ganymede’s ignorance as well as Zeus’ impatient sexual urge make for a very humorous exchange. Lucian “emphasizes the boy’s ignorance in order to titillate the reader.”102 Nonetheless, Lucian’s characterization of Ganymede also challenges audience members to take note of the boy’s genuine fear. Once he has understood that Zeus is a god, he thinks that he is being punished for something he did, and Ganymede begs Zeus to bring him back, promising a sacrificial ram as “ransom.”103 After Zeus has made Ganymede understand that they will be sharing a bed, the boy again tries to convince the god to take him home, saying that he is an annoyingly restless sleeper. Finally, having run out of options, he tells Zeus: “I will just go to sleep, you can do the kissing.”104 This is how the dialogue ends, but, as Richlin has pointed out, “there is no doubt . . . that the boy is about to be raped.”105 Just as with the dialogues that lead up to Ares and Aphrodite being caught in the net, the pieces that come before the conversation of Zeus and Ganymede color it in significant ways. The sequence starts with a conversation between Zeus and Eros, where the father of the gods complains about his frequent metamorphoses in pursuit of women, saying: “You have never yet made a woman love me, I never appeal to them on account of you, but I have to practice sorcery for them and hide myself.”106 The women kiss his disguises as bull or swan, says Zeus, but “they are frightened to death” when they see him.107 Eros gives Zeus the choice to either act like Dionysus and make himself more attractive and soft, or to give up on love. Zeus rejects both options: he wants sex, he just wants it to be less trouble (D. Deor. 6.2). The next exchange is about Io, a story 102. Richlin 2015, 367. As she points out the dialogue resembles D. meretr. 5 in this regard, where a naive female prostitute does not understand what a woman might be hiring her for, cf. Bissa 2013. 103. D. Deor. 10.2. Lucian continues to use the language of kidnapping and slave trade: λύτρα is a ransom, but is also attested as a term for the sum paid for manumitting a slave, LSJ A 1b. 104. D. Deor. 10.5: ἐγὼ δὲ κοιμήσομαι σοῦ καταφιλοῦντος. 105. Richlin 2015, 367. 106. D. Deor. 6.1: ἐμοῦ δὲ ὅλως οὐδεμίαν ἥντινα ἐρασθῆναι πεποίηκας, οὐδὲ συνῆκα ἡδὺς γυναικὶ διὰ σὲ γεγενημένος, ἀλλά με δεῖ μαγγανεύειν ἐπ᾽ αὐτὰς καὶ κρύπτειν ἐμαυτόν. He lists satyr, bull, gold, swan, and eagle, in reference respectively to his love of Antiope, Europa, Danaë, Leda, and Ganymede. On the similarity of this passage to Apul., Met. 6.22 see below in this section. 107. D. Deor. 6.1: τεθνᾶσιν ὑπὸ τοῦ δέους. The notion of Zeus transforming himself back into a god in order to make love is described only by Moschus, but he does not report on Europa’s reaction to this (Mosch. 162–­66). D. mar. 15.4 has Zeus turn back into himself upon arrival on Crete, and in reaction Europa is said to “blush and look at the ground” (ἐρυθριῶσαν καὶ κάτω ὁρῶσαν) in a mix of shame and fear.

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in which the girl (eventually) changes shape instead of Zeus: Lucian has Eros temporarily heed Zeus’ command, but there is still no question of a woman actually loving Zeus in his human form (D. Deor. 7). Zeus’ sudden interest as to whether or not his victims love him appears to align with the reciprocity ideal that is part of the mentality of conjugality. But the role of young novelistic lover is comically ill-­suited to Zeus and his myths. The reason that women caress Zeus in animal form is that they are tricked by his transformation into not feeling threatened, which is precisely its function. When they see Zeus they rightly do become afraid; whether or not they like Zeus’ looks is not the issue. In any case, Zeus’ interest in reciprocal love was short-­lived, and the god falls back into laziness by the end of his exchange with Eros.108 The two dialogues following the one about Io are both between Hera and Zeus. In the first one Hera is angry with Zeus for having brought Ganymede up to heaven. His continuous slighting of her as his wedded wife is bad enough, but to kiss Ganymede in front of her and all the other gods is too much.109 After he implies that the boy is dearer to him than his wife, she tells him: “Go ahead, just marry him for all I care!”110 In the penultimate dialogue before Zeus’ conversation with Ganymede, Hera and Zeus talk about Ixion, who has fallen in love with Hera. She is disgusted by this, while Zeus is understanding, and this culminates in the following interaction: Z: But love is a violent thing and rules not just humans, but even us sometimes. H: Love is your absolute master and he drives you and drags you, holding you by the nose, as they say, and you follow him wherever he leads you, and you gladly change into whatever he commands, and you are nothing but love’s possession and plaything.111 Hera latches on to Zeus’ massive understatement that sometimes gods also are under Eros’ sway. In her eyes Zeus is completely powerless against Eros. Zeus 108. Berdozzo (2011, 38–­41) argues that Zeus here is an opportunistic Don Juan not an idle victim of Eros, but it is precisely Zeus’ unwillingness at the end of the piece to give up sex that underlines how much sway the god of love continues to have over him. Eros obeys Zeus’ request for love without metamorphosis only temporarily. Branham (1989a, 144) sees Zeus in the role of “the desperate lover” from New Comedy, cf. Konstan (2002, 354–­59) who also sees Zeus as a pathetic figure here. 109. D. Deor. 8.2: ἀπολιπὼν ἐμὲ τὴν νόμῳ γαμετὴν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν κάτει μοιχεύσων. 110. D. Deor. 8.4: εἴθε καὶ γαμήσειας αὐτὸν ἐμοῦ γε οὕνεκα. 111. D. Deor. 9.3: ὁ δὲ ἔρως βίαιόν τί ἐστι καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρώπων μόνον ἄρχει, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἐνίοτε. / σοῦ μὲν καὶ πάνυ οὗτός γε δεσπότης ἐστὶν καὶ ἄγει σε καὶ φέρει τῆς ῥινός, φασίν, ἕλκων, καὶ σὺ ἕπῃ αὐτῷ ἔνθα ἂν ἡγῆταί σοι, καὶ ἀλλάττῃ ῥᾳδίως ἐς ὅ τι ἂν κελεύσῃ σε, καὶ ὅλως κτῆμα καὶ παιδιὰ τοῦ ἔρωτος σύ γε.

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still has one more thing to say before we move to the scene with Ganymede: “Love is not a crime.”112 When Zeus calls love “a violent thing” he is of course describing the effect it has on him, but leading into his conversation with Ganymede it also prefigures the sexual violence that he is about to do to the young boy under the compulsion of Eros, a compulsion that, according to Zeus, exculpates him. The fear that Zeus has observed in his female victims contextualizes Ganymede’s pleas to be returned home as soon as possible. Zeus’ transformations figure as cumbersome, shameful tricks that love plays on the father of the gods, still comic but neither innocent nor grandiose. Just as Aphrodite did in the previous section, Zeus draws attention to the fact that both humans and gods are victims of Eros. Lucian inverts the model of divine exemplarity that we saw in Aristophanes and Terence: Zeus and Aphrodite think it is fine for Eros to subject humans to his whims, but he should not be doing the same to the gods. Moreover, in comparing Eros’ hold over humans to his grip on the gods, Zeus elides, again, the difference in power between himself and his victims. Myths about male gods violating human girls and boys entail the crossing of the boundary between mortals and immortals, and the powerlessness of humans against the whims and desires of the gods.113 In these dialogues Lucian successfully makes fun of Zeus for failing to understand this fundamental asymmetry, and therewith of humans’ misconstruing the import of these violent myths. As mentioned, Lucian had a particular interest in Ganymede’s story, mentioning it seventeen times. To compare: Plutarch’s vast corpus contains no mentions of Ganymede, Aelius Aristides names him once, and Dio Chrysostom three times; Dio and Aristides mention Ganymede for his beauty, without referencing his sexual relations with Zeus.114 As Janet Downie has recently pointed out, Aristides’ treatment of myth is radically different from Lucian’s. Where Lucian revels in depicting the gods’ immoral behavior toward humans and one another, Aristides rewrites the gruesome story of Ino, making it into a wholesome love story between her and Poseidon, marriage included.115 In the same speech he admits that he was “very frightened and uncertain” as to how to handle the myth, “and whether we should be persuaded of the sufferings of 112. D. Deor. 9.5: τοῦ ἔρωτος—­οὐ γὰρ δεινὸν τοῦτό γε. 113. Compare Ar., Av. 556–­60 where Peisetaerus orders a wall to be built in the sky to stop sacrificial smoke, but also “to deny the gods / to travel through your land with erections / as they used to go down to commit adultery with Alcmenes / Alopes and Semeles, and if they do trespass, clap / a seal on their boners, so that they can fuck them no more.” Cf. Henderson 1991 [1975], 84; Dunbar 1995, 377–­78. 114. D. Chr. 29.17, 33.21–­22; Aristid., Or. 34.25. 115. Aristid., Or. 46.34–­41; cf. Downie 2019; Parker 2016, 77–­79.

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the gods, as most men, including Homer, are, for example of the chaining of Ares.”116 He concludes that in fact the gods are free from evil, sufferings, and misfortunes, so Ino cannot have flung herself into the ocean.117 Aristides places a question mark next to the story of Hephaestus’ trap, while he simply ignores Zeus’ rape of Ganymede. Compared to the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite, the rape of Ganymede was not a very popular iconographic motif.118 Still, Libanius does mention Ganymede and Zeus as a topic for pantomime (Or. 64.113).119 Furthermore, there are in the period two other areas outside Lucian’s comic dialogue in which Ganymede was important: early Christian polemic, again, and (primarily Roman) representations of and debates about the sex life of the Roman emperors Nero, Domitian, and Hadrian. These two areas, in turn, are mutually connected by exemplarity and invective as shared concerns. To begin with Christian polemic on Ganymede, Aristides of Athens writes: “Then in the same way they [the Greeks] introduce the story of Ganymede. And so it happened, king, that men imitated all these things, and became adulterers and men-­crazy, and doers of other evil deeds besides, in imitation of their god.”120 Tatian adds that Zeus, by using Ganymede as his cupbearer, “exalted pederasty,”121 and Justin Martyr smugly jokes that the Christians worship a god “who is not goaded on by lust for Antiope or Ganymede.”122 These authors, 116. Aristid., Or. 46.33: ὃν ἐγὼ δέδοικα καὶ πάνυ ὀρρωδῶ τε καὶ ἀπορῶ ὅπη ποτε χρή με διαθέσθαι μεθ’ ὑμῶν, πότερα ὡς τοῖς πολλοῖς δοκεῖ καὶ Ὁμήρῳ δὲ συνδοκεῖ, θεῶν παθήματα συμπεισθῆναι καὶ ἡμᾶς, οἷον Ἄρεος δεσμὰ. Text from Keil 1898. 117. Compare D. mar. 5 and 6 which combine the narratives of Ino’s madness inflicted by Hera and her suicide. On the exemplarity of the gods, and their susceptibility to emotions see also chapters 2 and 5. 118. Exceptions are the wall painting of Jupiter and Ganymede in a second-­century CE house in Ostia, cf. Clarke 1991, and the famous Leochares sculpture of Ganymede being snatched by the eagle, of which there is a purported second-­century CE Roman copy in the Vatican Museum, but see Perry 2005, 1–­7. 119. Cf. Lada-­Richards 2007, 52; Webb 2008, 83. Lucian’s Salt. does not explicitly mention Ganymede, though the remark in Salt. 59 (see n97 above) of course may include him. 120. Aristid. Ath., Apol. 9 = ps. John Damascene 246: εἶθ᾿ οὕτως παρεισάγουσι τὰ κατὰ τὸν Γανυμήδην. συνέβη οὖν, βασιλεῦ, τοῖς ἀνθρώποις μιμεῖσθαι ταῦτα πάντα, καὶ γίνεσθαι μοιχοὺς καὶ ἀρρενομανεῖς, καὶ ἄλλων δεινῶν ἔργων ἐργάτας, κατὰ μίμησιν τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτῶν. 121. Tatianus, Ad Gr. 10: δι’ οἰνοχοΐαν τοῦ Γανυμήδους τὴν παιδεραστίαν σεμνύνεται, cf. Ad Gr. 34 where he mentions Leochares’ sculpture of Ganymede and the eagle. 122. Justin, Apol. 1.25: ὃν οὔτε ἐπ’ Ἀντιόπην καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ὁμοίως οὐδὲ ἐπὶ Γανυμήδην δι’ οἶστρον ἐληλυθέναι. Earlier he writes that Zeus “overcome by desire for bad and shameful pleasures, went to Ganymede and many women he committed adultery with” (ἔρωτί τε κακῶν καὶ αἰσχρῶν ἡδονῶν ἥττω γενόμενον ἐπὶ Γανυμήδην καὶ τὰς πολλὰς μοιχευθείσας γυναῖκας ἐλθεῖν, Apol. 1.21). Text from Minns and Parvis 2009. Cf. Clem. Al., Protr. 2.33, 4.49, Strom. 1.21.137; Min. Fel., Oct. 23; August., C. D. 4.25; Lactant., Epit. Div. inst. 10; Basil, De leg. 4; ps.-­Clem. Rom., Hom. 5.1–­16. On the engagement of Christian authors with classical literature see Nasrallah 2005, 283–­ 314; on the similarity of themes to Lucian see Jones 1986, 35–­36, 45; cf. Andrade 2013, 284–­87; Bozia 2014, 98–­151.

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then, allege a connection between human men having sex with boys and Zeus’ behavior. The comic scenario from Aristophanes and Terence of Zeus’ divine example spurring on mortals to immoral behavior has become part of sincere antipolytheistic polemic. At the same time Justin Martyr partakes of mocking invective himself, mentioning Zeus’ lust for Ganymede to ridicule the god. Earlier readers used to connect Lucian’s interest in Ganymede to Hadrian’s relationship with Antinoüs,123 but Vout’s recent analysis of the importance of Ganymede in representations of not only this union, but also of the pairs Nero and Sporus and Domitian and Earinus suggests that the Ganymede and Jupiter myth cast a much larger shadow in the first and second centuries CE.124 Especially Hera’s challenge to Zeus to just go ahead and marry Ganymede brings to mind Nero and Sporus, who were supposedly married in Greece in 66–­67 CE.125 Remarkably, in the discourse that Vout traces, the assimilation of these imperial male-­male relationships to the story of Jupiter and Ganymede could function both in the context of invective, and be part of an intentional fashioning of the emperor in question after Jupiter: “The emperor’s sexual reputation had the power to make him divine.”126 There is, finally, one second-­century CE engagement with Jupiter and Ganymede that evokes both Lucian’s comedic approach and the political applications of the myth to emperors and their eromenoi. In Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Ganymede is mentioned four times as Jupiter’s very special cupbearer;127 two of these mentions occur in the context of the famous Cupid and Psyche story (Met. 4.28–­6.24). The happily married ending of this protracted love story appears to undermine my earlier characterization of the Latin novels as skeptic of conjugal love, yet Cupid’s disguise to deceive Psyche—­reminiscent of the many times the father of the gods did the same—­and Venus’ excessive cruelty to her illustrate the profound ambivalence even of this union, aside from its juxtaposition to the overall extremely negative portrayal of sexual desire in Metamorphoses.128 The end of the episode is set on Olympus, where Jupiter and Cupid have a conversation very much like Lucian’s dialogue between Zeus and Eros discussed in this section above. Jupiter complains that Cupid has wounded him, put him in shameful situations, and forced him to change shape many times; in a strongly 123. Wieland 1797, 417–­18; cf. Hemsterhuis cited in Lehmann 1822, 289; Williams 1888, 7, 10; Licht 1921, 64n117 (specifically on Deor. Conc. 8, on this passage see chapter 5). 124. Vout 2007, 13–­15, 52–­70, 89–­104, 137–­40. 125. D.C. 63.13.1 and Suet., Ner. 28.1, cf. Champlin 2003, 145–­50; Vout 2007, 136–­66. 126. Vout 2007, 13. 127. Apul., Met. 1.12, 6.15, 6.24, 11.8. 128. Cf. Penwill 1975; Lateiner 2000, 321–­22. Many read the episode as a Platonic allegory on the soul, immortality, and the divine, see e.g., Tatum 1979, 49–­60; Kenney 1990b.

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Romanizing twist Jupiter adds that Cupid has caused him to violate “the laws and especially the Julian law” against adultery. Nonetheless, calling himself “mindful of my self-­restraint (memor meae modestiae),” Jupiter forgives Cupid everything, allows him to marry Psyche, and deifies her so that the union may be a legitimate one between two equal parties. The only condition is that Cupid will henceforth give any woman of outstanding beauty he encounters on earth to Jupiter as repayment for the favors bestowed on him.129 Josiah Osgood has argued persuasively that in this episode Jupiter is a stand­in for the emperor who grants special legal dispensations: “As emperor, Jupiter can solve Cupid’s legal problems with just a few words. So the real emperor, with just a few words, could allow a Senator in love with a slave to marry her.”130 Although Apuleius does not connect Jupiter to a specific emperor, his acts as generic emperor are still of significant interest. Jupiter expresses regret for his violations, being a lawgiver himself,131 of the Julian adultery laws, and he enthusiastically facilitates Cupid’s conjugality. At the same time, he continues to keep his eromenos Ganymede very close (Met. 6.24), and he forces Cupid to facilitate new adulteries for him in the future. By having Jupiter lay claim to the virtue of modestia, which could be used to describe erotic self-­restraint specifically,132 Apuleius underscores the hypocrisy of the god-­emperor. It does not seem too farfetched to read his adulterous, boy-­loving Jupiter as playfully alluding to emperors who engaged in the same behaviors. The outsized interest of Lucian (and, to a lesser degree, Apuleius) in Ganymede and Zeus stands in sharp contrast to the near erasure of the story in the works of Plutarch, Dio, and Aristides. This erasure was likely due to heightened anxiety about homoeroticism and pederasty against the background of the age’s new conjugality. Lucian shares his preoccupation with early Christian authors inveighing against the Greek gods, and with Roman authors writing about emperors’ homosexual relationships. Lucian has his Zeus, Hera, and Ganymede engage explicitly with such topics as erotic reciprocity, faithfulness in marriage, and the violent nature of Zeus’ sexuality. All of this takes place on Olympus, but humans are never far away: Eros subjects immortals and mortals alike, the latter both directly and through the lusts of the former. Taken together, 129. Apul., Met. 6.22; cf. Helm 1968 [1914], 229; Zimmerman et al. 2004, 531–­32. 130. Osgood 2006, 432. 131. Apul., Met. 6.22: istud pectus meum, quo leges elementorum et vices siderum disponuntur. Zimmerman et al. 2004, 532: “The particular powers listed suggest . . . the providential supreme deity of philosophical thought. . . . The (self)-­evocation of this philosophical god, traditionally free from human passions . . . by the all too libidinous figure of Jupiter is ironically amusing here.” 132. As a Latin equivalent for the Greek term sōphrosunē, see e.g., Cic., Tusc. 3.16 and n28 above; cf. Zimmerman et al. 2004, 534–­35.

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the two clusters of Dialogues of the Gods I have discussed, one leading up to the trapping of Ares and Aphrodite, the other to Ganymede’s talk with Zeus, show love as something that is profoundly unmanageable and frightful. Lucian’s gods seem well aware of their shortcomings as examples for humans in love and marriage. They themselves are rendered powerless by love, yet are compelled to exert sexual violence on humans under its constraints. On its own this may seem like an obvious or even trivial point: of course the gods are bad models in this regard. Yet the strong interest in (good and bad) divine exemplarity with respect to sexuality in Aelius Aristides, in early Christian authors, in Apuleius, and other Latin authors shows that for Lucian and his contemporaries these were meaningful, urgent issues. In a world where it matters for the emperor to be a Jupiter to his Ganymede it is well worth pointing out that these gods likely never asked to be held up as examples in the first place.

Beauty, Desire, Worship So far this chapter has focused on the depictions of the desires and lusts of the gods as they relate to human desires and sexual morality. This final section will look at how Lucian and his contemporaries approached the possibility of the erotic desires of humans shaping their interactions with the gods, in ways both proper and improper. On the Syrian Goddess is generally considered to be Lucian’s most sincere and therefore most confusing work. It has only recently been reinstated as belonging to the Lucianic corpus. The piece, ultimately, is a homage to the goddess of the temple at Hierapolis: Hera as interpretatio graeca of Atargatis. Lucian has embedded several stories about ill-­starred love, desire, and marriage among mortals in the work. The narrator’s account of his devotion to the goddess at the temple of Hierapolis is intertwined with these love stories, which are presented in turn as partial aetiologies for the foundation of the temple and the rituals associated with it. This juxtaposition of religious devotion and earthly love is key to understanding On the Syrian Goddess, and Lucian’s approach to the desirability of the divine in general. The main reasons why On the Syrian Goddess used to be excluded from the Lucianic corpus are its linguistic features, since it is written entirely in the Ionic dialect, and its apparent reverence for the cult of the Syrian goddess. The question of whether or not there is any humor in the piece was prominent in the debate over authenticity: the less sincerity scholars read into the piece, the more likely they were to attribute it to Lucian, and vice versa. Lightfoot has definitively made the case for authenticity, interpreting the work primarily as Herodotean pastiche.

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She argues that in On the Syrian Goddess Lucian set aside his “habitual cynicism” about religion for the sake of the Herodotus impersonation.133 Lightfoot’s analysis of the vivid, mischievous humor of this text renders it convincingly Lucianic, but the combination of reverence and lurid comedy does not need to be explained as pastiche to fit into Lucian’s corpus. As we have seen in the previous chapter, although Lucian is eager to expose clunky rationalizations of ritual through his comedy, he does not strive to prove or disprove the value of ritual practice as such. Furthermore, tracing its narratives of conjugality among humans and toward the gods, as I set out to do, will show that the work’s stance toward the cult of the temple at Hierapolis is in fact ambiguous. The unnamed first-­person narrator of On the Syrian Goddess is a pilgrim to the temple and a devotee. His close connection to the goddess frames the text as a whole. In the first chapter he tells the audience that the temple is sacred to Assyrian Hera and that he himself is an Assyrian.134 Throughout, the narrator subtly styles himself as a pilgrim by the tone of his excited eye-­witness account. He withholds the precise extent of his personal attachment, in true Lucianic fashion,135 until the very last sentence, when he acknowledges that he deposited a lock of his hair dedicated to the goddess in her temple. The audience is left wondering which of the other rites described in his account he might have performed.136 After introducing himself and his topic, the narrator turns to a discussion of several other temples in Syria. Establishing the importance of these cult sites serves to elevate the temple at Hierapolis. Upon finishing his excursus the narrator says: These are the ancient and great sanctuaries of Syria. But as many of them as there are, none seems to me to be greater than those in the Holy City, nor any other temple holier, nor any country more sacred.137 133. Lightfoot 2003, 200; cf. Anderson 1976b, 78–­82; Elsner 2001; Richter 2011, 235–­41. Caster (1937, 363–­64) and Dirven (1997, 153–­79) argued against authenticity (in part) because of its apparent serious tone. Jones (1986, 41–­43) sees little humor, but, suggesting a patriotic motivation, does attribute it to Lucian. 134. DDS 1. See Andrade (2014, 307–­11) on Lucian’s use of the ethnic markers “Syrian” and “Assyrian” in DDS, and generally. 135. Compare the intrusion of “Lucian” and his implication in the events very late in VH and Alex.; on this topic see also chapters 1 and 6. 136. DDS 60; cf. Lightfoot 2003, 164, 474, 533. Andrade (2013, 288–­313) suggests that the narrator’s dedicating a lock of his hair rather than his shavings could imply that he is a gallus. Likewise, in Apul., Met. the narrator reveals himself as a priest of Isis only in the last book, which, as Winkler (1985, 8–­11 and passim) has argued, puts everything that has come before in a new light, and invites a “second reading.” 137. DDS 10: τάδε μέν ἐστι τὰ ἐν τῇ Συρίῃ ἀρχαῖα καὶ μεγάλα ἱρά· τοσούτων δὲ ἐόντων έμοὶ

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The narrator’s admiration for the temple of Assyrian Hera is unequivocal, and reminiscent of the superlative-­filled language of one extolling a beloved. The list of other temples, which are magnificent in their own right yet inferior to the one at Hierapolis, holds particular interest because of the stories that the narrator attaches to them. The narrator says that the temple of Astarte at Sidon was built by the Phoenicians for Europa, after she was kidnapped by Zeus, who “desired her for her beauty,” in the guise of a bull.138 The large temple in Byblos, he says, belongs to Byblian Aphrodite, and its worshippers perform the rites for Aphrodite’s ill-­ fated beloved Adonis, who was killed by the boar that jealous Ares sent. They engage in ritual mourning and shave their heads. Women who do not want to shave their heads perform ritual prostitution: “They put their beauty on sale for a single day; the market is open to strangers alone, and their fee becomes forfeit to Aphrodite.”139 Next, the narrator describes a river sacred to Adonis and a temple for Aphrodite founded by Cinyras, both on Mt. Lebanon (DDS 9).140 There are problems with the choices that Lucian’s narrator makes, such as the focus on Phoenician cult sites and on places associated with Greek culture, and with the likely accuracy of the information he provides. These issues have been analyzed by Lightfoot and others, and it is certain that Lucian purposely selected from, and framed the information that would have been available to him.141 The pilgrim’s account of the “other temples of Syria,” then, is a highly crafted narrative. Of the six cult sites that he mentions four are connected to myths about human-­divine intercourse and its disastrous consequences.142 The list leads up to the narrator’s description of the temple at Hierapolis proper, and reads as a priamel aimed at preemptively enhancing its luster; it places the topic of divine sexual desire center stage as a generative, aetiological force for ritual practices. Additionally, there is a strong emphasis on the importance of Aphrodite, which positions her as a powerful antagonist to Hera from the start. Among Libanius’ rhetorical exercises, also discussed at the beginning of this chapter, is a brief description of a statue of Hera; it is probably not by δοκέει οὐδὲν τῶν ἐν τῇ ἱρῇ πόλει μέζον ἔμμεναι οὐδὲ νηὸς ἄλλος ἁγιώτερος οὐδὲ χώρη ἄλλη ἱερωτέρη. I have taken all translations for DDS, as well as the Greek text, from Lightfoot 2003. 138. DDS 4: ὅτι ἐοῦσαν καλὴν Ζεὺς ἐπόθεεν. 139. DDS 6: ἐν μιῇ ἡμέρῃ ἐπὶ πρήσει τῆς ὥρης ἵστανται· ἡ δὲ ἀγορὴ μούνοισι ξείνοισι παρακέαται, καὶ ὁ μισθὸς ἐς τὴν Ἀφροδίτην θωϊὴ γίγνεται. 140. At Ov., Met. 10.298–­518 Adonis is the son of Cinyras and his daughter Myrrha through incest. At VH 2.25–­26 Cinyras kidnaps Helen; given the relative obscurity of Cinyras as a mythical figure, this passage and the mention at Rh. Pr. 11 could be added to the list of shared motifs between DDS and the rest of Lucian’s corpus; in D. Deor. 19 (discussed in section 2 above), Adonis is also connected with Mt. Lebanon, cf. Lightfoot 2003, 188–­89. 141. Lightfoot 2003, 294–­331; cf. Kaizer 2016. 142. One he relates to Heracles and for one he does not comment on its origins, DDS 3.

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Libanius himself.143 In this piece the speaker juxtaposes two types of marriage (gamos), one in accordance with the law, the other for the purpose of pleasure; Hera, of course, is in charge of the former, while Aphrodite is in charge of the latter (Descr. 16.1). The speaker describes that the sculptor has shown Hera completely covered, “as even Aphrodite herself honored her as she entered upon marriage with Hephaestus . . . as the conjugal goddess (syzygia theos).”144 As mentioned in section 1 above, syzygia was a divine epithet designating the divine oversight over marriage. The inclusion of Aphrodite’s marriage here emphasizes the power of Hera as goddess of lawful gamos, since she was able to constrain even her polar opposite (albeit temporarily). Aphrodite as goddess of extramarital desire resurfaces in another piece from Libanius’ Progymnasmata, which has recently been marshaled in support of the historicity of the kind of temple prostitution mentioned in On the Syrian Goddess.145 One of the speeches in character (ēthopoeia) presents a prostitute renouncing her sex work in a law to be inscribed on Mt. Lebanon. The law will state, addressing other women, that Aphrodite should not be used as “inducement for your licentiousness . . . even the Cyprian flees outrageous gamos.”146 The fictional ex-­prostitute argues that paid sex, contrary to what would-­be prostitutes might think, has nothing to do with Aphrodite. Many have dismissed ancient temple prostitution as an ahistorical, ethnographic fiction created by Greek historiographers (and later promoted by Christian polemicists) intended to “other” the practices of especially non-­Greek religious communities.147 Lightfoot, in contrast, concludes that the description of temple prostitution for Aphrodite in Byblos in On the Syrian Goddess might be “some version of the truth, however misunderstood or deformed.”148 Aside from the reliability of the narrator’s account it is obvious that Lucian, as well as the author of the late antique prostitute’s ēthopoeia, connected sex work with the cult of Aphrodite. The cult of Aphrodite on Mt. Lebanon pops up again in Lucian’s Uncultured Man. In a classic invective praeteritio the speaker affects modesty on account of “the lady of Lebanon,” but still calls his target “shame143. The piece is attributed instead to pseudo-­Nicolaus, whose work Gibson dates to the late fourth or early fifth century CE, Gibson 2008: xxiii–­xiv. 144. Lib., Descr. 16.2–­3 ed. Gibson: οἵαν καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ Ἀφροδίτη τετίμηκε πρὸς τὸν Ἡφαίστου βαδίζουσα γάμον . . . συζυγίαν ὁ πλάσας δηλοῦν τὴν θεόν. 145. Gibson 2019. 146. Lib., Eth. 18.3: μή σου τῆς ἀσελγείας ἀφορμὴν τὴν Ἀφροδίτην . . . φεύγει καὶ Κύπρις τὸν γάμον . . . τὸν ἐφύβριστον. This piece, too, has been attributed to pseudo-­Nicolaus (see n143) rather than Libanius, Gibson 2019. 147. Budin 2008, DDS discussed at 93–­103; cf. Beard and Henderson 1998, interpreting temple prostitution in DDS as a metaliterary joke at 70–­71; Pirenne-­Delforge 2007, 319–­23. 148. Lightfoot 2003, 325.

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less” and “stained”; if, as seems likely, the audience associated the cult with prostitution, this would render the remark meaner still.149 In the opening of On the Syrian Goddess the narrator introduces Aphrodite as a character by referring to her extramarital relationship with Adonis, while his mention of temple prostitution and Zeus’ desire for Europa point to her as powerful protector of extramarital (paid) sex. In Dialogues of the Gods, as we saw in sections 2 and 3 above, Hera inhabits her habitual role of faithful but jealous wife who criticizes her husband’s powerlessness in the face of Eros, while Aphrodite is desired and desiring exclusively outside the context of her marriage.150 The goddesses’ distinct roles as mythological characters are of course reflective of their particular (though overlapping) spheres of influence. The rhetorical exercises just discussed demonstrate that people indeed thought of Hera and Aphrodite as operating in opposition to one another within the overarching realm of marriage, sex, and desire, and that the audience of On the Syrian Goddess would have recognized the narrator’s employment of this opposition. Although these pieces as they are now extant were written down significantly later than the Lucianic corpus, they stem from an educational method that had been around for centuries, and key motifs would likely have been around in Lucian’s time already. In sharp contrast to his affirmation of Aphrodite’s might, the narrator casts doubt on Hera’s power as protector of marriage. After discarding several possible founders and origin stories for the temple—­including Attis’ having founded it for his beloved Rhea after having been castrated by her151—­the narrator pos149. Ind. 3: καί μοι πρὸς τῆς Λιβανίτιδος ἄφες ἐν τῷ παρόντι τὸ μὴ σύμπαντα σαφῶς εἰπεῖν . . . μιᾶναι . . . ἀναίσχυντος. Lightfoot (2003, 189–­90) and Richter (2011, 148–­51) interpret the mention of “the lady Lebanon” as targeting the book collector’s Syrian-­ness and lack of paideia, but what follows shows that his sexual mores are also being questioned. On prostitution at the Lebanon sanctuary see Eus., Vit. Const. 3.55.2–­5; cf. Lightfoot 2003, 329. 150. The characterization of Juno and Venus in Apul., Met. is messier. Juno mocks Venus for forbidding her son the pleasures she is in charge of (Met. 5.31), but is too scared to defy her (Met. 6.4); she plays a minor role generally, since in Met. Venus has usurped her role of cruel scourge from Verg., A., cf. Kenney 1990b, 178–­79; Zimmerman et al. 2004, 56–­57. Venus appears to present herself as divorced from Vulcan, and unhappily remarried to Mars; she calls Mars Cupid’s stepfather (an Ovidian joke, cf. Kenney 1990a, 185), and implies she raised him by herself; she is angry with Cupid for subjecting her to his wiles (as at D. Deor. 11.1, 12.1; cf. Helm 1968 [1914], 221), and for supplying Mars with a steady stream of mistresses; she harps on the illegitimacy of the union of Cupid and Psyche, to emphasize that Psyche’s son will not really be her grandchild (Met. 5.28–­31, 6.9). Throughout, Venus strains to appear matrimonial in this episode in spite of her mythological biography and her traditional role. This tension comes to the fore perhaps most comically in her angry outcry that Cupid, when he took up with Psyche after Venus had pointed her out to him for punishment, must have mistaken her for a female pimp (lena, Met. 5.28). On Apuleius’ Platonizing (see also n128 above) oscillation between characterizing the goddess as “Venus Caelestis” and “Venus Vulgaris” in the episode see Kenney 1990b. 151. DDS 15. For Attis and Rhea see also section 2 above on D. Deor. 20.1, where the castration is not mentioned. In Sacr. 7 Rhea is called παιδεραστοῦσα δὲ ἔτι καὶ ζηλοτυποῦσα, “loving of

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its Dionysus as founder of the temple for Hera. As a reason he gives the phalli that stand at the entrance which bear the inscription “I, Dionysus, dedicated these phalli to my stepmother Hera.” The narrator adds: “This is enough for me.”152 The narrator’s acceptance at face value of phalli purporting to have been inscribed by Dionysus as evidence renders him a double of the self-­professed lying protagonist and first-­person speaker of the True Histories, who accepts an inscription and footprints from Dionysus and Heracles as genuine documents (VH 1.7).153 This moment in On the Syrian Goddess is among the strongest arguments for its humorous tone throughout, and for Lucian’s tongue in cheek characterization of his pilgrim. Dionysus addresses Hera as “his stepmother” in the dedication. While this is in accordance with mythological lore, as she is of course married to his biological father Zeus, it also immediately draws attention to the failure of the marriage of the goddess who is the protectress of marriage.154 Before the mentality of conjugality that I outlined in section 1 above took hold, this form of address might have been harmless, since a successful marital union by no means precluded extramarital activities for the husband. In the second century CE, however, it would likely have been recognized as a stinging joke by Lucian’s audience. Such an interpretation is corroborated by the narrator’s next story, about the woman who, he claims, had the temple built. Stratonice, the wife of two consecutive Seleucid kings in the early fourth century BCE, is credited by the narrator with funding the construction of the temple at Hierapolis. He actually tells two stories about her, out of chronological order, both having to do with her marriage. In the first story Stratonice’s stepson is diagnosed by the palace doctor as being in love. The doctor successfully investigates who the boy is in love with, by checking his heart rate while making every member of the household walk by. When the stepmother comes in the boy blushes, his heart races, and so on.155 With his diagnosis complete the boys and jealous,” followed immediately by the euphemistic description of Attis as μηκέτι χρήσιμον εἶναι δυνάμενον, “no longer able to be useful.” Lucian’s jokey characterization of Rhea as a pederast is identical to D. Deor. 20.1. The euphemistic mention of Attis’ castration right after Rhea’s being labeled “jealous” implies a possible motive for the castration, which, as Lightfoot (2003, 359) notes, is absent in DDS. 152. DDS 16: “τούσδε φαλλοὺς Διόνυσος Ἥρῃ μητρυιῇ ἀνέθηκα.” {τὸ} ἐμοὶ μέν νυν καὶ τάδε ἀρκέει. On the textual issue see Lightfoot 2003, 372. 153. On the reliability of inscriptions as documentary evidence in Lucian see Kuin 2022. 154. Lightfoot (2003, 370, 372) connects Dionysus’ address of Hera as “stepmother” to stepmothers’ reputation for hostility toward their stepchildren. Hera is referred to as μητρυιά for the first time in Plato (Pl., Lg. 672B), also with respect to Dionysus; the application of the term to Hera becomes common only in the Roman period, cf. Watson 1995, 239–­43. 155. The list of symptoms is somewhat standard, for parallels see Lightfoot 2003, 381. In the Lucianic corpus we can compare the amorous symptoms Hera observes in Zeus at I. trag. 2.

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doctor comes up with a ruse. He tells Stratonice’s husband Seleucus that the son is in love with his own wife. Seleucus tries to strong-­arm the doctor into giving up his wife for the sake of the heir and the kingdom. The doctor responds: “You urge on a sacrilegious thing, destroying my marriage.”156 Seleucus insists, saying that he would not even begrudge his son his own wife, and when the doctor reveals the ruse, the king puts his money where his mouth is, surrendering his wife and his kingdom to his son Antiochus (DDS 17–­18). This first story is very famous as a narrative about how Antiochus inherited the kingdom from his father prematurely, and is told also in Plutarch and Appian, among others.157 In no other telling, however, does the doctor describe being forced to sacrifice his marriage with such strong, religiously marked language,158 nor is Stratonice’s marriage anywhere else associated with yet another rocky episode. The narrator emphasizes that the second story occurred during Stratonice’s first marriage. Hera told Stratonice in a dream under great threats to build her a temple in Hierapolis. Stratonice falls ill, realizes it is because of her procrastination, and, upon making plans to build the temple, is cured. Seleucus sends along the handsome Combabus to help and protect his wife. Combabus, before leaving, is so fearful that he might come under suspicion later that he decides to cut off his genitals, and places them in a box, which he deposits with the king without disclosing its contents. Stratonice and Combabus set out, and, predictably, the queen falls in love with him. After hiding it for some time she grows desperate and propositions her chaperone. When, after Combabus’ rejection, she threatens to kill herself, Combabus reveals to Stratonice what he has done. For a time they consort happily in their now harmless affection, but word of it reaches Seleucus, and they are recalled. Seleucus accuses him of “adultery and unbridled lust,” saying that Combabus “was a threefold offender: an adulterer, a breaker of faith, and a sinner against the god in whose work he had committed the crime.”159 Combabus asks for the box with his genitals to prove his innocence, and Seleucus acquits him, honoring his servant with many treasures (DDS 25). He, in turn, asks for permission to return to Hierapolis to complete the temple, and stays there (DDS 26). Reportedly, says the narrator, Combabus’ friends also cut off their genitalia. The practice continues to this day, and again we get two explanations: “Each year many castrate and unman themselves in the temple, whether to console 156. DDS 18: ἀνόσια σπεύδεις γάμον ἐμὸν ἀπαιρεόμενος. 157. Plu., Demetr. 38; App., Syr. 10.59–­62; cf. Lightfoot 2003, 373–­74. 158. Cf. Lightfoot 2003, 382–­83. 159. DDS 24: μοιχείην τε καὶ ἀκολασίην . . . λέγων τρισσὰ Κομβάβον ἀδικέειν μοιχόν τε ἐόντα καὶ ἐς πίστιν ὑβρίσαντα καὶ ἐς θεὸν ἀσεβέοντα, τῆς ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ τοιάδε ἔπρηξεν.

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Combabus or to do favour to Hera; at all events, castrated they are.”160 Later on in the piece the narrator will describe in comically lurid detail how men become galli in the goddess’ service at Hierapolis: after slicing off their genitalia they run through the city holding them, and they receive female clothing from whichever house they throw them into (DDS 51). Many strands come together in the magnificent story of Combabus and Stratonice, which is by far the longest episode in On the Syrian Goddess. Lightfoot has shown the extent of its Herodotean borrowings, its close affinity with several (later) narratives of queens and their handsome chaperones, and its resonance with many mythological narratives, often from the Near East, in which a powerful, amorous female deity is implicated in the castration of a younger male god—­including of course the story of Rhea and Attis discarded early on by the narrator as an aition for the temple and its unmanned attendants. Lucian may well have used the saga of Stratonice and Combabus because it had indeed become attached to the temple among locals.161 But, even if this is the case, how he lets the narrator tell it, and the connections he constructs within the piece as a whole remain significant. The emphasis on Aphrodite in the opening of the narrator’s account sets up a competition between her and Hera, and between desire and marriage. In the first Stratonice episode the doctor expounds on the sacrality of marriage in order to break up the king’s marriage and cure the prince’s erōs. This erōs of Aphrodite can be cured only by obeying its force. In the second episode Stratonice succumbs to erōs in spite of her bitter resistance, while both she and Combabus are in the process of building a temple to the divine protectress of marriage, as Seleucus points out. But once Combabus reveals what he has done to protect the king’s marriage, Seleucus is distraught at the magnitude of his servant’s sacrifice, saying he did not need it. This may ring insincere, but the audience already knows that Seleucus voluntarily cedes his wife later in the interest of the dynasty. The narrator shows that the cost of bridling erōs to protect marriage is extraordinarily high. In On the Syrian Goddess the mentality of conjugality is shown to be nearly impossible to uphold, though the piece insists on Assyrian Hera’s tutelage of the marital bond throughout. The overall effect is highly ironic. In the first and second centuries CE the mentality of conjugality extended 160. DDS 27: καὶ πολλοὶ ἑκάστου ἔτεος ἐν τῷ ἱρῷ τάμνονται καὶ θηλύνονται, εἴτε Κομβάβον παραμυθεόμενοι εἴτε καὶ Ἥρῃ χαρίζονται· τάμνονται δ᾽ ὦν. Lightfoot (2003, 416) points to Hdt. 2.181 as a parallel. It seems, then, especially humorous that Lucian’s τάμνονται δ᾽ ὦν has taken the place of Herodotus’ γαμέει δὲ ὦν. 161. Lightfoot 2003, 384–­402.

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to attachments between humans and gods, not in the sense of gods pursuing mortals for marriage,162 but in the styling of private worship of one individual divinity (or divine figure) through erotic language. The most powerful example of this is Aelius Aristides’ relationship to Asclepius. “It seemed like I could touch him and sense that he himself had come,” he writes in the Sacred Tales, “I wanted to look at him and was anguished he would leave too soon . . . my hair stood on end and I was weeping with delight.”163 Thecla, in her devotion to Paul—­she is inspired precisely by his preachings on virginity and wants to get away from her worldly fiancé—­sits at her window day and night to hear him speak, kisses his shackles when he is imprisoned, and rolls herself on the ground where he has taught.164 In Chariton’s novel Callirhoe the eponymous female protagonist is cast as an ardent worshipper of Aphrodite throughout, and as the most beautiful girl in the world she even morphs into a double for the goddess165—­just as Stratonice shades into the goddesses associated with the temple at Hierapolis. With its characterization of the narrator as a pilgrim, On the Syrian Goddess is Lucian’s most conjugal text by far. Furthermore, in the piece the men who castrate themselves for the goddess feature as examples of carrying one’s erotic attachment to the goddess to the extreme, namely by precluding the possibility of an (active) sexual relationship with other mortals. But in sharp contrast to Aristides’ sincerity, Lucian undercuts the notion of conjugality toward the gods within the very piece that is most clearly representative of it. While Hera, according to the people of Hierapolis, is grateful for Combabus’ deed as if he had done it for her—­she makes Stratonice fall in love with him so that it will become known how good he is (DDS 21)—­the narrator makes it clear that Combabus was worried only about what could happen to him oth162. Hera’s remark that Zeus should marry Ganymede and Cupid’s marriage to the now deified Psyche are telling exceptions (both discussed in section 3 above). 163. Aristid., Or. 48.32–­33: καὶ γὰρ οἷον ἅπτεσθαι δοκεῖν ἦν καὶ διαισθάνεσθαι ὅτι αὐτὸς ἥκοι . . . καὶ βούλεσθαι ἐκβλέπειν, καὶ ἀγωνιᾶν μὴ προαπαλλαγείη . . . καὶ τρίχες ὀρθαὶ καὶ δάκρυα σὺν χαρᾷ. Text from Keil 1898. Petsalis-­Diomidis (2010, 12) analyses the passage as showcasing Aristides’ love for Asclepius; Tagliabue (2016, 140) points to Asclepius’ elusiveness, which, I would add, underlines his assimilation to a beloved. 164. Acta Pauli et Theclae 8, 18, 20; cf. Brown 1988, 156–­59. 165. See e.g., Char., Call. 2.3.5 and 8.8.16; cf. Zeitlin 2008, 99–­101; Cioffi 2014, 8–­13; Bird 2021, 125–­27. Conversely, in Apul., Met. 4.28–­29 Psyche’s assimilation to and displacement of Venus is precisely the problem. Conjugality toward the gods can be connected to the phenomenon of henotheism, for instance in Aristides, cf. Parker 2016, 81–­87. The early Christian polemic against the promiscuity of the Greek gods aligns with their emphasis on heterosexual monogamy and their imagining of the relationship between humans and god as one of love, especially for instance in Paul’s 1 Cor.; cf. Wheeler-­Reed 2017; on celibacy and virginity in early Christianity see Brown 1988. It is unlikely but not impossible that Lucian was directly familiar with this, but it was part of the broader intellectual environment in any case; on Lucian and Christianity see also chapter 6.

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erwise (DDS 20). The narrator also interprets the motivations of the galli who follow Combabus’ example ambiguously, and his wildly colorful description of the self-­mutilations present it as an excessive, crazed rite, hardly something to be emulated. Lucian was invested in telling of the cult at the temple at Hierapolis using his Herodotean literary pyrotechnics. Yet, he also humorously shows the audience the pitfalls of worship as erotic devotion: it renders the narrator gullible and leads other devotees to maim themselves in a frenzy, supposedly following Combabus and his friends, who in fact had much more worldly motivations.166 In Lucian’s works conflations between erotic attachment to a god and divine worship surface in several other places in ways that corroborate interpreting On the Syrian Goddess as, among other things, satirizing the notion of conjugality toward the gods. In the exchange between Eros and Zeus discussed in the previous section, Eros proposes that Zeus should imitate Dionysus’ long curly hair, beautiful outfit, and musical gait to see “more women following you than Dionysus has maenads.”167 Lucian lets Eros equate Dionysus’ frenzied female followers with the female victims of Zeus, who he wishes would reciprocate his desire. The joke turns Dionysus’ worshippers into his girlfriends,168 making fun simultaneously of Zeus’ utterly misguided complaint, and of intense devotion styled as love for the god by Lucian’s contemporaries. Rob Cioffi has recently analyzed how the language of epiphany transforms female heroines in the novels, who inspire desire wherever they go, into either cult statues or even divine epiphanies.169 In section 2 above I have already discussed human (male) erotic desire for the female divine in Lucian, which is voiced by male gods in such a way as to invite the audience to join in the gawking in their mind’s eye. Similarly, in Judgment of the Goddesses Paris’ lascivious gaze—­the shepherd requests to see the goddesses naked, one by one (Dear. Iud. 9–­11)—­would likely have stirred up the audience’s imagination.170 While erotic 166. In this respect DDS is similar to the treatment of the Isaic cult in Apul., Met. 11 as many scholars now understand it: sincere fascination alongside critical mockery of the worshippers’ extreme devotion; cf. Winkler 1985, 204–­47; Harrison 2000, 238–­52; May 2006, 308–­29; Libby 2011; Watson 2014. 167. D. Deor. 6.2: ὄψει ὅτι πλείους ἀκολουθήσουσί σοι τῶν Διονύσου Μαινάδων. 168. Dionysiac frenzy is often sexualized, especially iconographically, but any desire is typically not directed at Dionysus himself, see Jameson 2003 [1993]. In E., Ba. Pentheus’ recriminations about the maenads vacillate between intercourse with men (223–­25) or with the god (235–­38); these charges are refuted in the play at 314–­18, 683–­88. 169. Cioffi 2014. 170. Also, just as with the adultery, audience members could have been familiar with (panto) mime performances of the judgment. Lucian mentions it as a topic for pantomime at Salt. 45; Apul., Met. 10.29–­34 contains a detailed description of a revealing mime or pantomime of the judgment, cf. May 2008, 339–­63; Hall 2008, 10–­34, contra Webb (2008, 101) who is skeptical of the evidence for actresses removing their clothes.

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desire for the (quasi) divine in the novel generally appears as high-­minded awe, Lucian distorts it into something crass. In Portraits he follows the novel’s model of imagining mortal women as cult statues, by describing a portrait of the beloved of Lucius Verus as an amalgam of famous cult statues. But the interlocutor Lycinus cannot help himself, and brings up the popular story of the man who tried to have intercourse with the statue of Aphrodite at Knidos, and left a stain.171 The disputed work Loves extrapolates on this anecdote by placing at Knidos a debate about the relative merits of heterosexual marriage as compared to homosexuality, especially with younger men. The interlocutor arguing (successfully) for homosexual desire as being more powerful and more profound, insists that the stain’s placement on Aphrodite’s behind proves that the man infatuated with the statue attempted the intercourse as if with a boy. While the contents of this piece could easily fit within the Lucianic corpus, its explicit language suggests that it is a successful imitation.172 The author, it seems, noticed Lucian’s refusal to join his contemporaries in simply discrediting homosexuality, as well as his interest in pushing the notion of conjugality toward the gods to its extremes, and combined them into a narrative of attempted anal rape of a statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual desire.

Conclusion “The euphoria and pain that Eros elicits puts all of us . . . on the same level.”173 Although this comment is in reference to Portraits, it could be applied to all the Lucianic works discussed in this chapter. Humans and gods are all Love’s playthings, and can “enjoy” the comically frivolous consequences of this together. Eros’ subjection of the gods gives the lie to those philosophers who fashion the gods as incapable of suffering or all powerful. But, as Lucian shows, humans are doubly victimized: by Eros himself and by the violent desire for humans that he inspires in the gods. In sharp contrast to his (non-­Christian) contemporaries Lucian foregrounds the story of Zeus and Ganymede, and emphasizes the lack 171. Im. 4. On this piece see Goldhill 2001, 184–­93; cf. Vout 2007, 213–­39. The story is also told at Val. Max. 8.11.4; Plin., Nat. 7.127, 36.20–­21; Clem. Al., Protr. 4.57; Tatianus, Ad Gr. 34. 172. One example of the piece’s explicitness is the use of the adjective παιδικῶς (Am. 17) to describe how the man made love to the statue; in Lucian παιδικῶς still means childlike without any subtext, see Philops. 27; Zeux. 6. The skill of the imitation is further underlined by the fact that the author has the interlocutor liken Cnidian Aphrodite to Ganymede, Am. 14. Macleod (1967, 148–­ 49) argues against authenticity based on style, and dates the piece to the early fourth century CE. Jones (1984) and Swain (1996, 123–­24) also argue against authenticity, but date the piece earlier, to the late second to early third century CE. Elsner (2007, 119n26) is in favor of authenticity. On the implications of the piece see further Goldhill 1995, 102–­11; Haynes 2013. 173. Vout 2007, 234–­35.

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of self-­control of the gods in the face of Love throughout. Portraying the gods as immoral in love and lust contributes to his critique of the theodicy of good fortune, which relies on the gods’ fundamental goodness. On the Syrian Goddess explores Aphrodite and Hera as the tutelary goddesses of desire and marriage respectively, and finds Hera, herself a frustrated stepmother, frequently outdone by Aphrodite. Lucian consistently satirizes his contemporaries’ use of the gods, whether as role models or patrons, to bolster the mentality of conjugality between humans. With his choice of topics, and, for instance, Aphrodite’s dominance over Hera in On the Syrian Goddess, he also appears to challenge the viability of this mentality as such. As noted at the opening of this chapter, the “new conjugality” was likely a preoccupation of the elites since it provided an answer for their problems first and foremost. Lucian’s challenge of it, then, possibly constituted yet another way in which he appealed to his mainstream audience through social criticism. Lucian, finally, also takes aim at those who fashion relations between humans and gods through the lens of conjugality. He targets the fringes of this model with ridicule: galli who vow themselves to a goddess through self-­mutilation and mortals ogling the (sculptured) bodies of the goddesses, or worse. Lucian’s resistance to the idea of humans loving their gods is, ultimately, a corollary to his overall skepticism about the philanthrōpia of the gods as provident rulers of humans, which will be the focus of the next chapter.

CHAPTER 5 ❦

Politics Cities of Gods and Men

As Xenophanes would say, those living in cities will picture their gods to be polis-­dwellers too.1 The humanlike interest in food and love that we have observed in Lucian’s gods in the preceding chapters is matched by their equally humanlike engagement with civic matters, both with respect to their own divine polis and those of mortals. Lucian’s humorous elaboration of what it means to imagine the gods as hungry, amorous, and, in this case, political, serves as critical engagement with the nature of anthropomorphism, with the problem of ethical exemplarity of such gods, and with the complexities of ritual practices designed to honor these ambiguous entities. The Greek gods debated each other in divine councils from Homeric epic onward, the motif had clear predecessors in Near Eastern literature,2 and the idea of a “senate” of the gods is even attested epigraphically.3 Lucian adapts the council of the gods scene for his own purposes, and adds other types of civic contexts, like a courtroom and (philosophical) conversations in the agora. Divine and human citizens interact, and when Lucian’s gods try to play the part of citizen most everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. These mishaps have a comedic purpose, yet the author has a serious stake in showing that if the gods were to perform citizen duties, they would be equally bad at it as mortals. Lucian’s humorous representation of gods-­as-­citizens must be understood against the background of the complex ideological and philosophical web of allusion between gods, rulers, virtue, exemplarity, and religious worship in the first and second centuries CE. Stoic ideas about exemplary divine rule governing the universe as a city shared by gods and men (kosmopolis) were very influential, while rulers on earth claimed to emulate divine virtue, and were in 1. Free after Xenoph. F 15 DK, on which see chapter 2. 2. Romano Martín 2009, 15–­24; Louden 2011, 17–­29; Reitz 2017, 719. 3. Petzl 1994, no. 5; cf. Chaniotis 2004, 27–­30.

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turn rewarded with quasi-­divine honors in the context of imperial cult. This web of allusion is illustrated clearly in Dio Chrysostom,4 for instance in the second of his Kingship Orations, where he has Alexander of Macedon lay out the ruler’s task of imitating the gods’ virtues to his father Philip. The ruler must “show in his deeds a character that is philanthropic, mild, just, dignified, and courageous, and, above all, one that delights in good works, which approaches the divine nature most closely.”5 In antiquity it was thought that Dio delivered the Kingship Orations to emperor Trajan in person, but the evidence for this is inconclusive; either way, he clearly composed the speeches with the ruler in mind.6 Dio’s message is that the emperor should follow divine example by being a philanthropic and just ruler. Conversely, in his likely fictitious Embassy to Gaius, Philo of Alexandria upbraids Caligula for fashioning himself outwardly after Heracles, Dionysus, and the Dioscuri, but not emulating their virtues.7 Lucian challenges this interpretation of the divine as exercising virtuous and provident rule, and undermines the gods’ role of ultimate arbiters and dispensers of justice; his critical and humorous assessment has inevitable repercussions for the imperial discourse of gods-­as-­rulers and rulers-­as-­gods, which penetrated iconography on coins and in monumental sculpture, literary panegyric, and philosophical discourse. Furthermore, because in imperial ideology rulers were modeled after the gods, Lucian’s comic highlighting of the gods’ faults could revert back onto the emperors themselves as indirect criticism of their autocratic rule. The author, however, shows himself keenly aware of the dangers of parrhēsia in the context of empire, and declines to close the circle, as it were: the audience is left to wonder—­at their own risk—­about the implications of depicting the gods, whom the rulers claim to emulate, as incompetent, unjust rulers.8 In the first section of this chapter I show how Lucian connects his divine polis to earlier literary iterations of it and to Stoic ideas about the community of gods and men, using his piece Icaromenippus as a guide. Next, I consider 4. On Dio Chrysostom and Lucian see also the Introduction and especially chapter 2. 5. D. Chr. 2.26: ἐνδεικνύμενον αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἔργοις φιλάνθρωπον ἦθος καὶ πρᾷον καὶ δίκαιον, ἔτι δὲ ὑψηλὸν καὶ ἀνδρεῖον, καὶ μάλιστα δὴ χαίροντα εὐεργεσίαις, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἐγγυτάτω τῆς τῶν θεῶν φύσεως. The text follows Cohoon’s 1932 Loeb edition. Compare also Or. 2.73–­78 where Zeus is imagined as punisher of bad kings, and protector of good kings, who either are allowed to live and serve a long time, or when they die young live on in favorable commemoration; Or. 1.37–­46 lists Zeus’ virtues as exemplary ruler, to be imitated by kings. Lucian has Philip and Alexander have a far less friendly conversation in the underworld at D. mort. 12, see section 3 below. For emperors imitating divine virtue see also Plu., Ad princ. 780F–­781A; Aristid., Or. 27.35; 43.19. 6. See Jones 1978, 115–­21; Swain 1996, 192–­206; 2000, 42–­47; Kokkinia 2004. 7. Philo, Legat. 11.77–­12.92; cf. Anderson 1993, 203–­4. 8. See esp. Hist. conscr., with Free 2015, 179–­254. For audiences reading rulers into Lucian’s gods cf. Branham 1989a, 173–­74; Fields 2020, 166–­70. See chapter 4 for emperors’ modeling their love life on the gods.

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the gods’ preoccupation with determining who belongs among their ranks and who does not in Assembly of the Gods as a showcase for Lucian’s comic attack on gods’ serving as political role models, and as an investigation of the nature of the divine as such. The latter inevitably brings to mind the complexities of the imperial cult, and in the third section I compare Lucian’s treatment of emperor worship with Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis. In the final section I turn to Lucianic gods as sources of law, justice, and providence, focusing on Double Indictment, Zeus Refuted, Tragic Zeus, and Saturnalia. Here the gods turn outward to attend to human affairs, and their failures impact human lives directly. Lucian’s humor in these dialogues is the strongest repudiation of the ideology of the theodicy of good fortune that we find anywhere in his works: the gods are questioned directly about the existence of evil, injustice, and unfairness in the world, and they do not have any good answers.

Divine Assemblies: Homer, Dio, Lucian Seeing the universe as governed by a natural or divine law readily, though not necessarily, renders it a city. These two metaphors—­that the world is organized according to a law and (thereby) can be understood as one universal polis—­are historically among the most influential ideas from ancient political thought.9 Nonetheless, they did not develop simultaneously, and the connection between these ideas and the anthropomorphism of the ancient gods is complex. Imagining that the gods themselves live together in a polis-­like community is still quite far removed from understanding the whole universe as a shared kosmopolis of divine reason. Similarly, appealing to the gods as guarantors of justice among humans is less demanding as a theological idea than positing that the universe is governed by divine laws. Lucian’s comic parodies of gods’ taking on civic roles equivocate between these two levels: he draws on old literary traditions of gods-­as-­citizens and gods-­as-­judges, but at the same time he engages the possibility of more profound connections between the divine, the polity, and the law. His approach mirrors the difficult reconciliation of traditional divine anthropomorphism and abstract explanations of the universe characteristic of the philosophical schools of his day.10 It is precisely their reliance on the traditional imagery of anthropomorphic gods as citizens and arbiters to illustrate   9. Brown 2009a, 332. 10. See chapter 2 for Stoic anthropomorphism in Dio Chrysostom and for Epicurean anthropomorphism in Diogenes of Oenoanda; other examples are Cornutus’ sketches of the gods (see Busch and Zangenberg 2010; Nesselrath et al. 2009) and Maximus of Tyre’s eclectic depiction of Zeus, e.g., in Or. 41, cf. Reydams-­Schils 2017.

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and explain theological-­philosophical principles that opens up his contemporaries to satirical attacks—­from Lucian himself, but also from competing philosophers who targeted the incompatibility of these modes of reasoning, like the Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda. Lucian’s dialogue Icaromenippus ends with a divine assembly called together by Zeus to discuss what to do about the philosophers and their dangerous ideas (Icar. 28–­34). In his account of this assembly Lucian connects his god-­citizens to earlier instantiations of this literary motif, while also signaling its resonance with contemporary philosophical debates on the notion of a polity shared by gods and humans. His comic divine council makes fun especially of the Stoic notion of the universe as a city shared by humans and gods. In Icaromenippus the audience views the assembly through the protagonist’s eyes, the human visitor Menippus.11 To describe the conclusion of the divine assembly, he uses a verse that occurs twice in the Iliad: “The son of Cronus spoke and nodded his head with his dark brows.”12 The first occurrence of this line in the Iliad is also in the context of a divine council; it bridges the conference between Thetis and Zeus and the full divine assembly, which, as discussed in chapter 2, ends with Hephaestus’ peacemaking and the gods’ unquenchable laughter. Although the Iliad and the Odyssey contain many divine assembly scenes, only the one that Menippus alludes to in Icaromenippus has strong comic overtones.13 For those in the audience who had the Iliad at their mental fingertips Lucian makes a programmatic gesture here, rooting his comic divine council in Homeric epic. For the character Menippus to perform this rooting is highly significant: Menippus of Gadara likely wrote a satirical divine council of his own, influencing Latin authors (Varro, Lucilius, and Seneca), and Lucian himself.14 If Lucian and (some of) his audience members knew or knew of a 11. On Icar. see especially also chapter 3. 12. Icar. 33 = Il. 1.528 = Il. 17.209: ἦ καὶ κυανέῃσιν ἐπ’ ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων. 13. See Reitz (2017, 721–­27) for an overview of divine assembly scenes in Od. and Il., which can be understood as echoes of human assemblies in the epics; she does not view Il. 1.528–­611 as humorous; she does interpret Od. 8.306–­69 as a “burlesque council scene” that prefigures the union of satire and epic in later divine councils (ibid., 743), but this scene (Hephaestus’ gathering of the gods to gawk at the adulterers) hardly constitutes an actual assembly. Romano Martín (2009, 12, 67) distinguishes between serious and humorous divine assemblies, tracing a diachronic view, with h. Merc. 325–­97 figuring as the first instance of humorous parody; she sees no humor in the divine assembly of Il. 1 (ibid., 26–­29, with further discussion of Il. and Od. at 30–­61). 14. Helm 1906, 158–­62; Bompaire 1958, 637; Hall 1981, 130–­31; Conte 1999 [1987], 215–­16; contra Relihan (1993, 39–­42), cf. Romano Martín (2009, 152–­53), who do not consider it certain that Menippus wrote a piece featuring a divine assembly. In his list of works for Menippus, Diogenes Laërtius does not mention a concilium deorum, yet he emphasizes that his list is incomplete, D.L. 6.101. On Lucilius’ divine assembly as connected to Ennius rather than Menippus see Coffey 1976, 42–­43. Another influence may have been Aristophanes’ (now fragment) play Seasons (Horae), see further n54 below. (Arguably) comic divine concilia are featured also in Ov., Met. 1.168–­252, 9.239–­61, and Apul., Met. 6.23; on these authors and their relation to Lucian see also chapter 4.

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concilium deorum by the historical Menippus that developed the motif from an epic set piece into a comic genre, using the character Menippus as a reporter for the divine council in Icaromenippus becomes another programmatic joke. A largely overlooked remark in Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love strengthens the case for Menippean influence on Lucian’s Icaromenippus and his other concilia deorum, Tragic Zeus and Assembly of the Gods. Plutarch’s father, in a debate about the legitimacy and power of the god Eros, says that Eros is on a par with Zeus or Athena as a divinity, since he is not one of those “barbarian gods” who might run the risk of “being prosecuted for illegally being enrolled as a citizen and for being a bastard among the gods.”15 Such a prosecution is precisely the topic of Lucian’s Assembly of the Gods, which contains a close verbal echo with Plutarch: the main protagonist, Momus, describes the inquiry as “pertaining to bastards and those illegally enrolled.”16 Although in Dialogue on Love there is no reference to a text featuring prosecutions of gods, it is likely that Plutarch knew or knew of an example from literature when he raised the prospect, which, indeed could have been Menippus’. I point to this mention of a possible (Menippean) precursor to Lucian’s concilia deorum not in order to revisit the issue of Lucian’s originality,17 but rather to underline the richness of Greek comic traditions featuring the gods, and more specifically comic traditions featuring the gods-­as-­citizens. That Lucian draws on these traditions, from Homeric epic onward, is clear. If we also accept that Plutarch refers to a work by Menippus of Gadara, the Iliadic verse quoted by Menippus as interlocutor in Icaromenippus would constitute a programmatic invocation of the comic concilium deorum motif throughout literary history. The second programmatic intertextual moment in Icaromenippus occurs at the beginning of the piece, when Menippus tells his unnamed friend that he went to heaven to find out for himself about the nature of the universe and the gods, because the philosophers on earth are hopelessly divided on the question (Icar. 5–­10). In the opening paragraph Menippus alludes to Plato’s Protagoras in describing, boastfully, how far he had to travel to get “to heaven and the acropolis of Zeus.”18 This quotation from Protagoras’ myth about Prometheus and 15. Plu., Amat. 756C–­ D: οὐδ᾽ ἔπηλυς ἔκ τινος βαρβαρικῆς δεισιδαιμονίας  .  .  . ὥστε παρεισγραφῆς δίκην φεύγειν καὶ νοθείας τῆς ἐν θεοῖς. To the best of my knowledge only Görgemanns et al. (2006, 148n130) have commented on this passage, noting that what Plutarch here envisions was later depicted by Lucian in Deor. Conc. 16. Deor. Conc. 13: περὶ τῶν νόθων καὶ παρεγγράπτων. Plutarch’s παρεισγραφῆς (see n15 above) is a hapax; Lucian’s παρεγγράφω is the proper legal term, see further n50 below. 17. Lucian’s independence is obvious already in the fact that the gods whom Plutarch’s father mentions as being subject to such prosecutions, Adonis and Attis, do not feature at all in Deor. Conc., though Attis is called a metic in Icar. 27 and a barbarian in I. trag. 8, on this see further n50 below. The most thorough consideration of Lucian’s originality remains Hall 1981, 64–­150. 18. Icar. 1: ἐς αὐτὸν ἤδη τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν τὴν τοῦ Διὸς ἄνοδος.

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Epimetheus prefigures the problematic interaction of citizen-­gods and citizen-­ humans: Prometheus is unable to give humans civic virtue (hē politikē technē), because he “was not allowed to enter the acropolis of Zeus, his dwelling.”19 These are the only two times the phrase “the acropolis of Zeus” occurs in classical literature. In Plato, Zeus himself ends up giving humans hē politikē technē, because without it they are incapable of civilization (Prt. 322A–­D). With this reference to the Protagoras Lucian has Menippus one-­up Prometheus—­he was able to enter Zeus’ acropolis—­which fits with many other moments where Prometheus is a foil for Lucian’s protagonists.20 More important, in the Protagoras-­myth Zeus is ultimately depicted as the source of the political. It is kept in his dwelling, which is named in analogy to the term for the civic and religious center of a Greek city, and Zeus disperses hē politikē technē among humans according to his own desires. In Icaromenippus, as we will see, we encounter a Zeus who is also concerned with the civic participation of humans, but sets a poor example, and undermines his credibility as the ultimate source of civic virtue. For this element of Lucian’s satire to work, audience members would not need to recognize the reference to Protagoras themselves. Its significance is rather that Lucian had Plato’s philosophical dialogue in mind when writing his Icaromenippus, which supports interpreting the piece as commentary on (the lack of) divine involvement in human political virtue. When Menippus gets to the heavens he finds that the gods are just as dissatisfied with the philosophers as he is. He travels to Olympus via the moon, Selene, and she tells him to tell Zeus to “destroy the natural philosophers, to silence the dialecticians, to raze the Stoa, to burn down the Academy, and to stop the lectures in the walkways (peripatois).”21 The reason for her anger is that the philosophers challenge her status as an anthropomorphic divinity even though she turns a blind eye to all of their illicit nighttime activities (Icar. 20–­21). Menippus promises that he will pass it on. Next, Menippus knocks on heaven’s door, and is admitted by Zeus. He finds the gods all sitting together and both parties, the gods as much as Menippus, are taken aback by their encounter. The “unexpectedness” of Menippus’ arrival has put the gods “in a quiet flutter,” and they “almost expected all humans to arrive instantly similarly outfitted 19. Pl., Prt. 321D: τῷ δὲ Προμηθεῖ εἰς μὲν τὴν ἀκρόπολιν τὴν τοῦ Διὸς οἴκησιν οὐκέτι ἐνεχώρει εἰσελθεῖν. Camerotto (2009, 97) also notes the quotation. There is no doubt that Lucian knew Prt.: there is an allusion to Prt. 328D in Nigr. 34 and to Prt. 318A in Sol. 6; cf. Householder 1941, 35–­36. Tackaberry (1930, 69, 73–­74, 77–­78) lists several more allusions and reminiscences. 20. See Prom. es, Prom., and D. Deor. 5. Camerotto’s (2009, 97) view that Menippus simply becomes another Prometheus, because at the end of Icar. he is thrown out of heaven, misses the point. 21. Icar. 21: τοὺς φυσικοὺς ἐκεῖνος ἐπιτρίψῃ καὶ τοὺς διαλεκτικοὺς ἐπιστομίσῃ καὶ τὴν Στοὰν κατασκάψῃ καὶ τὴν Ἀκαδημίαν καταφλέξῃ καὶ παύσῃ τὰς ἐν τοῖς περιπάτοις διατριβάς.

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with wings.”22 When Zeus addresses him, Menippus “nearly drops dead from fright” at the loudness of the thunderer’s voice.23 The next day Zeus gets up in the morning and calls a meeting of the gods (Icar. 28). He notes that, though the meeting is prompted by Menippus’ arrival, he had been wanting to debate the problem of the philosophers’ critiques for a long time already; like Selene he calls out the philosophical sects by name.24 In his diatribe Zeus complains that the philosophers “speak badly of everyone else,” while “they, worst of all, accomplish nothing, neither for the common good nor privately, but sit around useless and superfluous, ‘of no account in war or council.’”25 Zeus says that the philosophers attack humans and gods (Icar. 31–­32). In describing the philosophers Zeus quotes Odysseus’ harangue of the Achaeans in the Iliad, where the hero casts the powers of kings as derived from Zeus, in order to rouse the men to continue fighting for Agamemnon (Il. 2.188–­206). Following Zeus’ speech all the gods shout their views at the same time, clamoring for annihilation of the philosophers, while Menippus remains silent. Zeus, however, responds that he cannot carry out the punishment during festival season, it has to wait until the next year (Icar. 33). Menippus is to be clipped of his wings and carried down to earth. Hermes heeds Zeus’ command, and drops Menippus off in the Kerameikos. Menippus, in closing, says that he will go to the Stoa Poikile to report what he has learned in heaven (Icar. 34). With his smooth return trip from earth to heaven and back, Menippus is depicted as a new theomachos-­type: while Prometheus is always excluded and punished, the philosopher receives a warm welcome, joins the side of the gods, and arrives back on earth unscathed.26 Lucian’s comic divine council narrative in Icaromenippus targets the imagery of the universe as a city shared by humans and gods, which was important particularly to imperial Stoics. Menippus’ successful trip unites the human and divine realms into a physically shared space, and the gods worry that as a consequence all humans might come to heaven. Zeus’ core complaint about the philosophers is that they do not contribute to the common good, while they criticize everyone else, men and gods. He alludes to debates among Epicure22. Icar. 22: ὑπετάραττε γὰρ ἡσυχῇ τὸ παράδοξόν μου τῆς ἐπιδημίας, καὶ ὅσον οὐδέπω πάντας ἀνθρώπους ἀφίξεσθαι προσεδόκων τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ἐπτερωμένους. 23. Icar. 23: μικροῦ μὲν ἐξέθανον ὑπὸ τοῦ δέους. 24. Zeus makes a different selection, listing Stoics, Academics, Epicureans, and Peripatetics, Icar. 29. 25. Icar. 30: τὸ δὲ πάντων δεινότατον, ὅτι μηδὲν αὐτοὶ μήτε κοινὸν μήτε ἴδιον ἐπιτελοῦντες, ἀλλ᾽ ἀχρεῖοι καὶ περιττοὶ καθεστῶτες “οὔτε ποτ᾽ ἐν πολέμῳ ἐναρίθμιοι οὔτ᾽ ἐνὶ βουλῇ” [= Il. 2.202] ὅμως τῶν ἄλλων κατηγοροῦσιν. Cf. Fug. 30 for another reworking of the same verse, with Camerotto 2009, 138. 26. On Prometheus and theomachy see Chaudhuri 2014, 1–­14; cf. Whitmarsh 2015, 40–­51.

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ans and Stoics on whether or not the philosopher should participate in public life—­for the former the answer was no, for the latter a qualified yes27—­and gives a backhanded compliment to Menippus, who dared to come up to heaven to engage the gods, and thereby becomes a proper participant in the universal polis. The other philosophers just waste everyone’s time speculating about it. The gods do not punish Menippus for his intrusion in any way, other than trying to prevent him from coming back. The gods’ apprehension at the thought of all humans coming to heaven and Menippus’ terrible fright when Zeus speaks are both literal, almost banal illustrations of the problems posed by a city shared by gods and men. Yet, in spite of their absurdism they are a serious challenge: if gods and men share a polis, how are we meant to understand that this polis is governed, through collaboration, direct divine supervision, or indirect inspiration of human rulers? In Icaromenippus the unification of divine and human realms is undone at the end of the piece by the clipping of Menippus’ wings. That Menippus is going to the Stoa Poikile first to share his findings, instead of the Lyceum or the Academy, shows that Stoicism is the main target of the piece. The role of the gods and Zeus in particular as sources of hē politikē technē is undermined in fundamental ways: their assembly is a dysfunctional shouting match without any results, and Zeus says that he will not act on his decision until next year. The long delay does not inspire confidence, but rather provides fodder for the Epicureans’ arguments against divine providence based on the absence of (quick) divine punishment of crimes, a topic to which we will return in the last section of this chapter. By the end of Icaromenippus the Homeric verse that Lucian puts in Zeus’ mouth to shame the philosophers reverts back onto the gods, who are themselves exposed as being “of no account in war or council.”28 For audience members with a strong recall of the Iliad, the derivation of human kingship from Zeus’ rule in the immediate Homeric context of that verse would create an even stronger irony. In order to situate Lucian’s satirical response in its imperial philosophical climate, we turn briefly, again, to Dio Chrysostom, and to Diogenes of Oenoanda. Dio provides the fullest expression of his thought on the kinship between gods and men, and the monarchical ordering of the divine and human worlds in his thirty-­sixth oration, also called Borysthenic, presenting himself

27. On (Roman) Stoics see Reydams-­Schils 2005, 83–­113; on Epicureans see Brown 2009b. 28. Fields’ reading (2020, 170) overlooks the fact that Zeus’ punishment is only announced, not carried out, and oddly assumes that Lucian’s audience would not expect the god to punish wrongdoers.

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as espousing Stoic principles.29 He reports to his fellow citizens of Prusa on his experiences in Borysthenes (Olbia) in Pontus, where in the local temple of Zeus he lectured to the citizens on the nature of the divine city. Initially, he argues that the only truly “good city” is the city of the “blessed gods” because they are without “strife or defeat.”30 Next, he suggests that humans are part of the divine city by virtue of having reason, though they are not full members, but rather “like boys who are said to be part of the city together with the men, being citizens by virtue of their birth, but not by their thinking about and performing the tasks of citizens, nor by sharing in the law, because they do not understand it.”31 Finally, he describes the divine city as a way of “joining in harmony the human race with the divine” whose shared reason is “the foundation of community and justice”;32 here humans no longer play the role of children, but as citizens have a share in justice with the gods. Dio’s treatment is a careful elaboration of Stoic traditions. In Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods, for instance, the Stoic Balbus sums up the idea of the shared divine polis as follows: For the world is like a house shared by gods and men, or like a city shared by both. They alone use reason and live by justice and by law.33 Cicero’s Balbus presents the shared house or city as a metaphor, yet the grounds for gods and men sharing the same space are concrete: their shared use of reason, and their living “by justice and law.”34 Dio’s Borysthenic Oration works through the same complexities of the divine-­city-­metaphor that Lucian’s humorous translation of it into the realm of imagination raises. Do gods and humans really share reason to such an extent that they can commune and communicate? Dio wavers between the divine city as a model for human cities, and humans’ actually sharing in the divine polis. 29. D. Chr. 36.29; cf. Russell 1992, 6, 226; Swain 1996, 197; Nesselrath 2003, 78; Forschner 2003, 130. 30. D. Chr. 36.22: ἀγαθὴν μὲν γὰρ ἐξ ἁπάντων ἀγαθῶν πόλιν οὔτε τις γενομένην . . . πλὴν εἰ μὴ θεῶν μακάρων κατ’ οὐρανόν . . . χωρὶς ἔριδος καὶ ἥττης. The text follows Russell 1992. 31. D. Chr. 36.23: ὡς παῖδες σὺν ἀνδράσι λέγονται μετέχειν πόλεως, φύσει πολῖται ὄντες οὐ τῷ φρονεῖν τε καὶ πράττειν τὰ τῶν πολιτῶν οὐδὲ τῷ κοινωνεῖν τοῦ νόμου, ἀξύνετοι ὄντες αὐτοῦ. To this passage we may compare the notion that the gods created human communities as colonies, related but inferior to their own divine city at D. Chr. 30.26–­27; cf. Moles 2000, 192–­93. 32. D. Chr. 36.31: ξυναρμόσαι τῷ θείῳ τὸ ἀνθρώπειον γένος  .  .  . κοινωνίας ἀρχὴν καὶ δικαιοσύνης. 33. Cic., ND 2.154: Est enim mundus quasi communis deorum atque hominum domus aut urbs utrorumque; soli enim ratione utentes iure ac lege vivunt. Text from Pease 1968. 34. Cf. Cic., Leg. 1.23, on humans and gods sharing reason, law, and, therefore, a civitas. On the Stoic cosmic city of gods and men see Schofield 1991, 57–­92.

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The anthropomorphism of ancient Greek and Roman religion, as discussed in previous chapters, was thought to contain kinship in two directions. On the one hand, humans, because they are polis-­dwellers themselves, will imagine their gods as citizens, just as horses would imagine their gods as horses. On the other hand, imagining the gods as human in form can be part of an ethics of imitatio dei whereby the gods serve as models of virtue and justice. Dio’s depictions of the gods as citizens are, in sharp contrast to Lucian’s, positive and protreptic in precisely this sense.35 The second-­century CE Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda provides further testimony for the ongoing influence of Dio’s shared divine polis, by offering scathing criticism of it: Moreover, what [god, if] he had existed for infinite [time] and enjoyed tranquillity [for thousands of years, would] have [got this idea] that he needed a city and fellow-­citizens? Add to this absurdity that he, being a god, should seek to have human beings as fellow-­citizens.36 The inscription continues in similarly mocking vein. If the god created the world as a city for himself, where was he living before? Or was he “cityless and homeless”?37 Diogenes jeers at the Stoics for supposing that the gods needed a city and fellow-­citizens.38 Through his vivid language he tries to show that it is equally laughable to think of gods and humans as fellow-­citizens, as it is to imagine the gods as needing a home or city in the first place. Lucian’s concilia deorum partake of the same critique of the Stoic divine polis as the inscription. Diogenes of Oenoanda uses the technique of the rhetorical question to great effect, Lucian proceeds by providing answers to Diogenes’ challenges: his gods appear comically anthropomorphic while living in a city with fellow-­citizens, and when they have humans join them in their polis the consequences are, indeed, quite absurd. The failings of the gods’ polis and 35. Cf. Forschner 2003. Nesselrath (2003, 79) suggests that in Or. 30 Dio invokes the ideal of a just community of gods and men as a model for the relation between the Roman imperial rulers and their subjects; Gangloff (2010, 258–­60), with reference to Or. 30 and Or. 36, attributes to Dio an ethics of imitatio dei more broadly; Russell (1992, 23) compares Or. 36 to Or. 40, seeing both as “an argument for concord” in his own day. At Or. 1.37–­46 kings must imitate the virtues of Zeus, on this theme see section 3 below. 36. Diog. Oen. NF 127 IV.11–­ F 20 I.7: τίς δὲ κα[ὶ θεός εἰ] ἦν τὸν ἄπειρ[ον χρόνον] ἡσυχάσας χι[λιάδας ἐτῶν] οὕτως εἰς ἔν[νοιαν ἄν ἦλ]θεν τοῦ πόλεως αὐτῷ χρείαν ὑπάρχειν καὶ συνπολειτευτῶν; πρός τῷ καὶ γελοῖον εἶναι θεὸν ὄντα ζητεῖν συνπολειτευτὰς ἀνθρώπους ἔχειν. Text and translation for F 20 from Hammerstaedt and Smith 2014, 263–­70. On Diogenes in the intellectual environment of his day, and connections with Lucian, see Gordon 1996, 8–­42. 37. Diog. Oen. F 20 II.4–­5: ἄπολις ἦν καὶ ἄο[ι]κος. 38. On Diogenes’ targeting Stoics see Gordon 1996, 47–­48.

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their poor civic virtues in these pieces serve as a humorous, flippant attack on the shared divine city fashioned by the Stoics, targeting especially the protreptic that authors like Dio Chrysostom sought to derive from it.

Who Is a (Lucianic) God? A recent attempt to define the Greek gods lists three main features: immortality, anthropomorphism, and power.39 Application of these criteria to accounts of the Greek gods produces many contradictions, which were of great interest to the ancients themselves, and this, in turn, underlines the significance of these fault lines. The complicated nature of the anthropomorphism of the ancient gods is, as this book argues, central to Lucian’s comedy. In playing with the question “who gets to be a god?” the features of immortality and power are central, as is the genealogy and provenance of the gods. The latter can be subsumed under anthropomorphism—­like humans, gods are from somewhere—­and at the same time it is connected to the importance of place in ancient religion, which has been treated in depth in recent scholarship.40 The local epithets of Greek and Roman gods that were related to regions, cities, or specific sanctuaries gave rise to narratives explaining such local connections; an obvious example is using the story of Apollo’s birth on Delos in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo to explain Delian Apollo. Lucian’s Assembly of the Gods is the most detailed example of a divine council in his works. The transmitted title (in Greek: theōn ekklēsia) suggests that we are in a gods-­only civic context, but whether or not this is truly so will be at stake in the meeting: who are the true gods, rightfully in attendance, and who are the false, human interlopers? Interpretations of Assembly of the Gods have viewed either the distinction between “old” and “new” gods or the distinction between “foreign” and “native” gods as central. The former approach cannot but lead to a quick dismissal of the dialogue as being oddly out of touch: in Lucian’s time there was nothing new about the cults of most of the gods scrutinized in the piece.41 As part of the latter approach it has been argued that Assembly of the Gods alludes to Marcus Aurelius’ interventions to tighten access to membership of the Areopagus at Athens, which turns the work into a commentary on ques39. Henrichs 2010, 29. 40. Importance of place in Roman religion: Ando 2008, xiv–­xvi, 21–­42, 120–­48; in Greek religion: Parker 2017, 13–­17, 95–­101; specifically in the second century CE: Bendlin and Nesselrath 2019, 191–­95. 41. Caster (1937, 340–­46) takes Deor. Conc. as evidence for Lucian’s inattentiveness to the society he lived in.

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tions of inclusion and ethnicity among humans, Athenians especially.42 While Lucian may plausibly have inserted this as one of the messages in Assembly of the Gods, perhaps alongside a broader appeal to contemporary concerns about cultural (Greek) identity and social stratification,43 this line of inquiry cannot appreciate fully how the dialogue unfolds as a specific concilium deorum plot. Ethnicity is less important in the piece than has been argued, and figures alongside other yardsticks for properly divine status. Considering Assembly of the Gods in its entirety shows that it is a story, ultimately, about a botched divine assembly, and about the impossibility of corralling the Empire’s overflowing cast of divinities into a coherent system. With the comedic staging of these two failures, Lucian takes aim both at the notion of an exemplary, smoothly run city of gods and men, as we find for instance in Dio, and at the well-­ordered, hierarchic kosmos of Stoic thought in which everything and everyone—­animals, humans, and gods—­fulfills their proper role. Throughout Assembly of the Gods Lucian emphasizes the gods’ attempts at correct procedure and formality, which by the end of the piece will all have been proven in vain. The piece starts with Zeus’ asking Hermes to announce the meeting by making “the proclamation required by law.”44 Hermes complies and asks: Of the fully-­fledged gods for whom this is allowed, who wants to speak? The inquiry concerns resident aliens and foreigners.45 Momus, the god of blame, is the first to respond to Hermes’ proclamation. He asks Zeus if he may speak, but Zeus responds that the proclamation itself allows it, and that Momus needs no permission from him (Deor. Conc. 1). In the remainder of the assembly meeting only Momus and Zeus will speak, with the former indicting a large swath of the divinities present as fake gods, and the latter agreeing with this indictment throughout. 42. Made by Oliver (1980); initially the new requirement was three generations of free birth, but as a compromise it was soon amended to a freeborn mother and freeborn father. Romano Martín (2009, 405–­13) adopts his interpretation, adding that the piece also makes fun of the traditional gods. 43. See e.g., Branham 1989a, 165–­66; Richter 2011, 231–­35. For Jones (1986, 34–­38) and Berdozzo (2011, 97–­102) the piece is Hellenocentric criticism of foreign cults. Lucian appears to take some interest in interpretatio graeca in cults here, e.g., at Deor. Conc. 10 (cf. Parker 2017, 77–­112), but it is far from the main issue; on this compare also DDS, with Lightfoot (2003, 175–­77) and Herc., but for the latter see Elsner (2007, 59–­60) and Spickermann (2008, 56–­63; 2009, 236–­38) on its historicity. 44. Deor. Conc. 1: τὸ κήρυγμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ νόμου. 45. Deor. Conc. 1: τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται τῶν τελείων θεῶν οἷς ἔξεστιν; ἡ δὲ σκέψις περὶ τῶν μετοίκων καὶ ξένων.

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The opening exchange between Momus and Zeus highlights Momus’ shortcomings as plaintiff in a case that is meant to determine who the true gods are, and Zeus’ lackluster performance in overseeing the proceedings. Momus asks Zeus if he may speak because he is aware that the label “fully-­ fledged god” does not readily apply to him: Momus is a personified abstraction (more about this category in this section below), and, specifically, one who does not receive any cult.46 Zeus, however, lets the meeting proceed as if Momus’ status is beyond doubt. Lucian preemptively signals the audience to regard Momus’ virulent attacks on other divinities with suspicion. As the god of blame he is bound to find fault with everyone and everything,47 and his own divine stature is questionable. Zeus is complicit in this hypocrisy since he gives Momus free rein.48 Momus starts his diatribe by pointing his finger in a general sense at those “who have become gods instead of men,”49 and even though they are “half-­ mortal” have subsequently moved their attendants up to heaven with them and “registered them fraudulently” without even paying the “metic taxes.”50 Momus continues the Athenian legal vocabulary introduced by Hermes by casting doubtful divinities as metics (resident aliens) who have been fraudulently entered into the citizen roll of heaven. Even though he borrows language that in human contexts distinguishes foreigners from natives, Momus’ categories of real and fraudulent gods are not (yet) concerned with ethnicity, but only with 46. RE: “Er führt eine rein literarische Existenz.” Lucian has Momus admit this, referring to himself in the third person, at I. trag. 22: “For Momus it is not a big risk, if he will lose his cult, since he was not receiving honors before” (Μώμῳ δὲ οὐ μέγας ὁ κίνδυνος, εἰ ἄτιμος ἔσται· οὐδὲ γὰρ πάλαι τῶν τιμωμένων ἦν). 47. Compare I. trag. 23 where Zeus encourages the other gods to ignore the “nonsense” (ληρεῖν) of Momus because he is always “harsh and critical” (τραχὺν ὄντα καὶ ἐπιτιμητικόν); at Icar. 31 Zeus compares the philosophers who criticize everything to Momus. 48. Previous discussions of Deor. Conc. have ignored the hypocrisy of Momus’ being the source of the attacks on the other gods entirely, see Spickermann 2009, 233–­34; 2010, 163–­64; Berdozzo 2011, 96–­97; Richter 2011, 234–­35; Camerotto 2014, 79–­80, 234–­38. McClure (2018, 20–­25) does comment on Momus’ being an abstraction, but interprets him as an Epicurean spokesman attacking the gods on Lucian’s behalf; yet, Momus will prove unconvincing as prosecutor, and Lucian was no Epicurean, cf. Van Nuffelen 2011, 179–­99. 49. Deor. Conc. 2: θεοὺς ἐξ ἀνθρώπων αὐτοὺς γεγενῆσθαι. 50. Deor. Conc. 3: θνητοὶ ἐξ ἡμισείας ὄντες . . . παρενέγραψαν . . . οὐδὲ καταβαλόντες ἡμῖν τὸ μετοίκιον. The metoikion was a regular poll-­tax that metics had to pay in classical Athens; at Bis acc. 9 Pan is said to pay metoikion to the Athenians after fighting on their side at Marathon; at Icar. 27 Menippus describes Pan, the Corybantes, Attis, and Sabazius as metics; at I. trag. 32 Heracles calls himself a metic. Aeschines (2.76) uses the verb παρεγγράφω to describe people who have become citizens at Athens illegally, and Lucian uses it in this sense at Bis acc. 27; at I. trag. 21 the term also describes fraudulent gods. At Cic., ND 3.39 Hercules, Aesculapius, and Romulus (among others) are described as “those who are believed to have been received into heaven sort of like new, additionally enrolled citizens” (quos quasi novos et adscripticios cives in caelum receptos putant); cf. Coenen 1977, 79; Pease 1968 [1958], 1045.

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mortality. He is indignant because semi-­mortals and their attendants have been joining the gods in heaven. Zeus responds to Momus’ opening salvo by asking him to name names (Deor. Conc. 3). Momus’ ire focuses on Dionysus, who is “half-­human” (hemi­ anthropos), and on his mother’s side not even Greek, but “Syrophoenician.” That he has obtained immortality in spite of his wantonness and continuous drinking is bad enough, yet the divine status of Dionysus’ attendants Pan (half-­ goat!), Silenus from Lydia (rides a donkey), and animallike satyrs from Phrygia bothers Momus the most (Deor. Conc. 4). He worries that the divinity of these creatures undermines the respect for the gods in general: Do you see what sort of gods this noble guy has made for us? And we still are surprised that humans look down on us, when they see such laughable and monstrous gods?51 Momus’ agitated questions make the stakes of the inquiry of Assembly of the Gods crystal clear: rules need to be established to determine what sort of creatures get to be gods. Later on Momus says that the large number of gods has already led to more perjury and temple robbery, because humans despise the gods, according to him rightly so.52 Momus’ criticisms imply that being a god requires being fully immortal (divine parentage on both sides), of lawful, free birth, having a fully human form, and Greek-­speaking. He mocks Mithras, whom he calls “a Mede,” for wearing foreign clothes and not speaking Greek (Deor. Conc. 9). In the first preamble of the motion that he reads out at the end of the assembly Momus states that “many foreigners, not only Greeks but also barbarians” have undeservedly joined heaven;53 as a result the community of the gods has become “a disordered rabble of polyglot, washed up characters.”54 The label “foreigner” here denotes those whom Momus considers foreigners to heaven, and has only partially to do with 51. Deor. Conc. 4: ὁρᾶτε οἵους ἡμῖν θεοὺς ποιεῖ ὁ γεννάδας; εἶτα θαυμάζομεν εἰ καταφρονοῦσιν ἡμῶν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ὁρῶντες οὕτω γελοίους θεοὺς καὶ τεραστίους; 52. Deor. Conc. 12. 53. Deor. Conc. 14: πολλοὶ τῶν ξένων, οὐ μόνον Ἕλληνες ἀλλὰ καὶ βάρβαροι. 54. Deor. Conc. 14: ὄχλου ταραχώδους πολυγλώσσων τινῶν καὶ ξυγκλύδων ἀνθρώπων. On the problem of the language of god(s) compare Philod., De Deis III col. 13–­14; S.E., M. 1.179; Origen, Cels. 8.37; cf. Coenen 1977, 63; Rochette 2010, 222–­23. The Triballian gods are mocked in Aristophanes for not speaking Greek (Av. 1615, 1629, 1678–­79), and for their dress (Av. 1567–­72), and are called “the most foreign of all the gods” (βαρβαρώτατον θεῶν, Av. 1573); cf. Morenilla-­ Talens 1989, 169–­76; Long 1986, 46–­48; Colvin 1999, 289–­90. Helm (1906, 156–­57) has suggested that Lucian also knew Aristophanes’ now lost Seasons (Horae), which reportedly featured a trial to expel “Sabazius and other immigrant gods” from the “city” (Cic., Leg. 2.37); it is unclear whether a human or divine polis is meant, but the latter is certainly a possibility; cf. Delneri 2006, 71–­124; Rusten 2011, 322–­23.

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ethnicity. Similarly, when Momus attacks the Egyptian gods, he focuses on their nonhuman features: dog-­heads and ram’s horns and the like (Deor. Conc. 10). Momus charges two gods with having been slaves on earth, Heracles and Zamolxis,55 and he invokes the issue of illegitimate birth, most readily applicable to Heracles, when he lumps together all of the gods he has criticized (other than the Stoics’ personifications) as “illegitimate children and fraudulently registered citizens.”56 Momus draws on the same theme in his attack on Zeus himself: he imputes the Achaeans with claiming that Zeus is a “changeling” of uncertain parentage, a story not otherwise attested,57 and he refers to Zeus’ tomb on Crete (Deor. Conc. 6), in order to raise the issue of the (im)mortality of the father of the gods.58 The suggestion that even Zeus’ divinity might be questionable, which Momus retreats from hastily, removes any remaining doubts as to the frivolousness of his prosecution. A lack of form as such is the reason for dismissing as divinities Virtue (Aretē), Nature (Physis), Destiny (Heimarmenē), and Chance (Tychē), whom Momus characterizes as “strange names of beings not existing among us and not at all able to exist  .  .  . baseless and empty names of things.”59 The irony, of course, is that Momus himself would easily fit into this category: an empty name for an abstract concept. Virtue and Chance, in contrast to Momus, did receive cult,60 and they were both frequently depicted in human, female form.61 Momus blames the philosophers for creating these “improvised” divinities,62 55. Deor. Conc. 6–­7, 9. In Deor. Conc. 6 Heracles and Asclepius are said to have “the marks of fire” (τὰ σημεῖα . . . τοῦ πυρός). For Asclepius this is merely a joke about his having been struck by lightning, but Heracles threw himself on the pyre, and as an ex-­slave bears the mark of having been branded, cf. Oliver 1980, 306. On Zamolxis’ enslavement see Hdt. 4.94–­96 (here his name is actually spelled ‘Salmoxis’). 56. Deor. Conc. 13: νόθων καὶ παρεγγράπτων. For Heracles as a nothos compare Ar., Av. 1641–­ 70. At D. mort. 15.3 Heracles explains to Diogenes that his shade in the underworld is Amphitryon’s part (Alcmene’s husband), while the part that came from Zeus has been deified and is in heaven; this is, in turn, a clear play on Heracles’ dual location in the nekyia at Od. 11.601–­3. 57. Deor. Conc. 6: ὑποβολιμαῖον. Cf. Harmon 1936, 427. 58. On Zeus’ tomb see also Sacr. 10 and I. trag. 45; cf. Kokolakis 1995. 59. Deor. Conc. 13: ξένα ὀνόματα  .  .  . οὔτε ὄντων τινῶν παρ᾽ ἡμῖν οὔτε συστῆναι ὅλως δυναμένων . . . ἀνυπόστατα καὶ κενὰ πραγμάτων ὀνόματα. 60. In many places in Greece there is evidence for cult for Tyche from the fourth century BCE onward; in the Roman period she becomes more prominent, alongside Roman Fortuna, Miano 2018, 157–­77. Virtus was honored in several temples at Rome (Fears 1981, 883–­84), but she was also honored, alongside Agatha Tyche, in Erythrae in the second century BCE, IErythrai 207 = SEG 15, 724/5; cf. Parker 2011, 98–­102. In Greek religion strict distinctions between “real” gods and personifications are unhelpful, since several prominent gods (e.g., Eros) are of course abstractions, cf. Parker 2011, 77–­79. 61. Tyche: LIMC 8.1: 115–­25. Fortuna: LIMC 8.1: 125–­41. Arete: LIMC 2.1: 581–­82; cf. Smith 2011, 124. Virtus: LIMC 8.1: 273–­81. There is one possible but uncertain visual attestation of Momus, winged and ugly, on a late sixth-­century BCE Attic black figure vase, Chicago Art Institute 89.15; LIMC 6.1: 649–­50. 62. Deor. Conc. 13: αὐτοσχέδια. The charge of improvisation is further undermined by the fact that Momus and Tyche are mentioned in Hes., Th. 214 and 360 respectively.

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and audience members would likely understand that he is targeting the Stoics, who were known for personifying and elevating abstract concepts like heimarmenē.63 The emptiness of Virtue, Nature, Destiny, and Chance alleged by Momus also suggests ethical criticism—­there is no more virtue!—­and an attempt at reestablishing the power of Zeus in human affairs over and above other forces. Lucian’s characterization of Momus in Assembly of the Gods clearly exposes this prosecutor to charges of hypocrisy and frivolousness; that Lucian has also painted Momus as a coward becomes apparent when we bring in his backstory.64 In this old Aesopic narrative Momus himself is expelled from heaven after three gods ask him to judge a competition of their inventions—­bulls, humans, and houses—­and he, true to his nature, finds fault with all three.65 In his Hermotimus Lucian paraphrases the fable of Momus’ judgment and expulsion at some length,66 and he refers to it in passing in two other pieces.67 Most of his audience members would have known the story: that several different versions survive points to its popularity. Scholars have praised Lucian’s Momus for his parrhēsia in Assembly of the Gods, but he actually panders to Zeus throughout. He heeds requests not to criticize Ganymede (Deor. Conc. 8) and to go easy on Asclepius and Heracles (Deor. Conc. 6), and he foists the claims about Zeus’ mortality and questionable parentage on others without pursuing them further (Deor. Conc. 6–­7).68 Momus’ hedging renders Assembly of the Gods as an alternative, what-­if 63. Cf., e.g., Cornutus, Graec. 13.3; Cic., ND 1.39–­41, 55, 3.44. 64. The only other major story about Momus (preserved in a scholion to Il. 1.5, which introduces a fragment of the Cypria, cf. West 2003b, 81–­83) has him act as adviser to Zeus: in order to alleviate overpopulation of the earth Zeus can start a war by having Thetis marry a mortal, and by letting a beautiful daughter (Helen!) be born. This story has been suggested as the plot of a lost satyr play by Sophocles titled Momus, Radt F 420–­24; cf. Lloyd-­Jones 1996, 218–­19. Both events are connected, of course, to Paris’ judgment of the goddesses, which is structurally similar to Momus’ judgment of the works of the gods in Perry 100 (see n65 below). 65. In Perry 100 (= Chambry 124) the gods are Zeus, Prometheus, and Athena, and Zeus “angry at him for his envy expels him [Momus] from Olympus” (ἀγανακτήσας κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ βασκανίᾳ τοῦ Ὀλύμπου αὐτὸν ἐξέβαλεν, Perry 100, 7–­8). Text from Hausrath and Hunger 1970. In Babrius 59 Poseidon takes the place of Prometheus, and Momus’ expulsion is not narrated, but clearly prefigured: “Momus was chosen as a judge for these things, because he was still living among the gods” (ᾑρέθη τούτοις / κριτὴς ὁ Μῶμος· ἔτι γὰρ ἐν θεοῖς ᾤκει, Babrius 59). Text from Perry 1965. For Momus’ expulsion see also Artem. 4 pr. The early date of the fable is established by Aristotle, who mentions Momus’ criticism of the bull at Part. an. 663B; cf. Luzzatto 2006. 66. Herm. 20. In Lucian the gods are Athena, Poseidon, and Hephaestus, with the latter as creator of man; the focus is on Momus’ criticism that humans have been created without windows in their chests to allow people to see whether or not someone is lying, cf. Solitario 2020, 277–­79. Wagner (1852, 325–­26) proposed the story of Herm. 20 as the plot of Sophocles’ lost Momus (see n64), but he seems unaware of the underlying fable. 67. Nigr. 32 and VH 2.3; cf. Bompaire 1958, 463n1. 68. Cf. Berdozzo 2011, 96–­97; Camerotto 2014, 236–­38; McClure 2018, 20–­23.

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story to his expulsion from heaven in the Aesopic tradition. His character is here domesticated and corrupted by the assembly of the divine polis. While in the fable Momus fearlessly speaks his mind, Lucian’s Momus makes himself amenable to Zeus, the presider over the concilium. He still fulfills the role of critic, but deflects attention from himself by incriminating others. Momus poses as a defender of the traditional order—­whatever this might mean—­aligns himself with Zeus, and manages to stay in heaven this time.69 Audiences might also have understood the defanged Momus of Assembly of the Gods as commentary on the restraints on parrhēsia under autocratic rule, with Zeus standing in for the emperor.70 In any case, Momus’ corruption by the proceedings completes the picture of the failings of the divine polis as polis, sketched by Lucian. The final part of Assembly of the Gods consists in a motion, already mentioned, read by Momus: the fake gods are condemned for crowding out the “old and true gods,”71 and a committee consisting of gods of Cronus’ generation and Olympian gods is set up to review membership claims. All who consider themselves worthy to (continue to) participate in the divine assembly in the future must bring witnesses willing to testify and proofs of (lawful, presumably) birth.72 Those who fail this review will be sent down to their tombs or the tombs of their ancestors. Zeus initially calls for a vote on the motion by a show of hands, but then, realizing that by their sheer number the questionable gods would easily be able to block the motion, simply declares it carried (Deor. Conc. 19). This is how the piece ends, and the audience is not made privy to the review process. Instead, Zeus closes with a warning: “The judges will not care if someone has a big temple on earth and humans believe him to be a god.”73 Zeus’ final remark in Assembly of the Gods, together with the omission of the review from the dialogue, points to a core contradiction: Zeus and Momus proceed as if they, as gods, determine who receives divine honors from humans, but the premise of the piece as a whole—­many “unsanctioned” gods are also being worshipped—­suggests the importance of human agency. The ancient 69. Erasmus seems to have made a connection between Momus’ exile and Deor. Conc. as well. He writes in Praise of Folly that ultimately the gods exiled Momus because they were tired of hearing him speak of “their crimes” (sua facinora, Moriae Encomium 15). Neither in the Aesopic fable nor in the Cypria can Momus be said to do this, but in Deor. Conc. and to some degree I. trag. he does. On Lucian and the Aesopic tradition see the Introduction. 70. Cf. Fields 2020, 167–­68. 71. Deor. Conc. 14: παλαιούς τε καὶ ἀληθεῖς θεούς. 72. Deor. Conc. 15: ἀποδείξεις τοῦ γένους. At Deor. Conc. 19 Zeus specifies that the ἀποδείξεις must contain the names of the mother and the father. 73. Deor. Conc. 19: οὐδὲν μελήσει τοῖς ἐπιγνώμοσιν εἰ νεών τις μέγαν ἐν τῇ γῇ ἔχει καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι θεὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι νομίζουσιν. In Macleod (1980) ἔχει is missing here, it is corrected in Macleod 1987, 472.

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gods were imagined as intervening in cult in many ways, ranging from Prometheus’ invention of animal sacrifice, the use of divination or omens to determine the proper location of a temple, to votive inscriptions claiming to have been requested by the god(s) in a dream or epiphany.74 A Stoic syllogism that Sextus Empiricus ascribes to Zeno—­and subsequently demolishes—­argues that because it is reasonable for someone to honor the gods, and not reasonable to honor beings that do not exist, the gods exist.75 Zeno clearly did not mean to argue that humans are arbiters of divinity, or, even worse, that they create gods by worshipping them, but his reasoning did open up this line of thinking for the likes of Lucian to explore. An obvious, thorny example of humans rather than gods deciding who receives divine worship with special relevance for Lucian and his contemporaries was the imperial cult (we will turn to this theme in the next section). In the comic scenario of Assembly of the Gods the assumption appears to be that “new” gods surreptitiously entered heaven, and subsequently became popular as recipients of cult with humans. Zeus and Momus want to expel these gods and reallocate their cults for the “old and true gods.”76 Zeus’ final words in the piece mix defiance and frustration: Zeus acknowledges that humans will honor whom they believe to be a god no matter what he thinks, but he, in turn, vows to expel “fraudulent” gods no matter how popular they are with humans. The proposed review, let alone the expulsion, cannot take place within the narrative, however, precisely because audiences realized that the cults of Mithras, Dionysus, and Heracles were alive and well, in spite of the threats of Zeus and his lackey Momus. In Lucian’s concilia gods are lackluster citizens. Momus’ hypocrisy and opportunism are the direct consequence of Zeus’ shortcomings as presider. Zeus lets Momus speak at length while the proclamation should not allow for this; he changes the rules of the proceedings during the meeting by omitting 74. Prometheus and sacrifice: Hes., Th. 535–­64 (see also chapter 3). For omens determining temple location see for instance the accounts of the introduction of Aesculapius at Rome: Liv., Per. 11 and ps.-Aur. Vict., De vir. ill. 22. On mentions of dreams in Greek and Latin religious inscriptions see Harrisson 2013, 210–­19. Potter (1994, 4–­15) helpfully distinguishes between “active” and “passive” religious experience; the former consists in searching for new knowledge through oracles and other media of divine communication, while the later consists in following a script that had already been written, as in cult ritual; the “active” component of Greco-­Roman polytheism allowed it to change and adapt to developments in society. Arguably, though, all forms of ritual started out as innovative, “active” religious experience once: at stake is—­as illustrated in Deor. Conc.—­what at any given time in a community is labeled as innovative and what is considered to have always been there. 75. S.E., M. 1.49, 133–­36; cf. Whitmarsh 2015, 169. 76. Deor. Conc. 18: Momus announces that the sacrifices and temples of those judged not to be real gods are to be rededicated to Zeus, Hera, Apollo, or someone else; he may be hinting at himself here.

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the vote. Lucian makes a mockery of the exemplary divine polis, and, by extension, of an imagined city shared by gods and men—­even sharing heaven among themselves turns out to be too difficult for the gods. Momus as prosecutor is flawed from the get-­go, and his legendary critical stance is compromised further by the shortcomings of the political process run by Zeus. What Momus means by “old and true gods” cannot in any way be systematized, no matter how charitable one tries to be,77 and this is precisely the point. In the polytheistic system of the Greeks and Romans the number of gods is potentially infinite.78 Gods from different places and traditions were connected, translated, and adapted, but ultimately worshipped together or at least alongside one another. The resulting cast of gods, from Mithras to Hermes and from Athena to Isis, was heterogeneous and unsystematized. The second reason, then, for the review desired by Zeus and Momus not taking place, is that it would be impossible to accomplish. Attempts to define what the gods are like and to understand how they relate to each other were ongoing in Lucian’s time, and these types of questions were hotly contested in second-­century CE philosophy. Skeptics such as Sextus Empiricus attacked the expansiveness of the Stoic understanding of the divine, and argued on the basis of the impossibility of demarcating and circumscribing the gods and their properties, for instance through the famous sōritēs-­ argument (see the next section), that their existence as such is unprovable.79 The Stoics, in turn, used the—­in their eyes—­orderly, hierarchical structure of the kosmos as an argument for the existence of the divine, which itself could also be neatly systematized into different classes and categories.80 Lucian’s dramatization in Assembly of the Gods of the flaws of the divine polis, and of the absurdity of Momus’ project are located at the center of this philosophical discourse. Like Sextus, Lucian pushes back against the demanding and positivistic Stoic position on the divine. Unlike Sextus, Lucian makes fun of the very terms and methods of this philosophical debate, as he insists on participating in it in his own comedic register. 77. If the criterion were playing an active role in Il. this could explain Momus’ criticism of Dionysus, who is largely absent there (cf. Tsagalis 2008, 1–­29), but the same goes for Asclepius, who is accepted as god at Deor. Conc. 16, and Momus of course. If inclusion in Hes., Th. were the standard, the problem would be that both Dionysus and Tyche are mentioned, but, again, Asclepius is not. Having divine parents on both sides is a problematic requirement for Momus, who only has a mother. 78. Cf. Henrichs 2010, 23. 79. S.E., M. 1.138–­90; cf. Cic., ND 3.43–­52. 80. Cornutus, Graec. passim; Cic., ND 2.33–­39. I. trag. 38–­39 pokes fun at the Stoics’ preoccupation with order, on this piece see section 4 below. On systematization of the divine in imperial Stoic thought see Athanassiadi and Macris 2013, 56–­58.

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Lucian and Seneca on Emperor Worship In the introduction to this chapter I have pointed to the significance of emperor worship as a backdrop to Lucian’s humor about divine citizens. In the overcrowded divine assemblies of Icaromenippus, Assembly of the Gods, or Tragic Zeus (which we will turn to in the next section) deified emperors are, however, not featured. This omission has loomed large in dismissals of Lucian’s concilia, Assembly of the Gods in particular, and it has been suggested that he did not dare make fun of the “easy immortalization of the emperors” directly.81 Yet such an explanation is undermined by Lucian’s treatment of emperor worship elsewhere. Although in Alexander the False Prophet he refers to Marcus Aurelius as “divine” (theos) in a matter-­of-­fact way without further comment,82 in Self-­ Defense “Lucian” as first-­person speaker defends his paid work in the imperial service by comparing his own wages to those of the emperor for comic effect: Not even the emperor himself is unpaid. I am not speaking of tributes and taxes . . . the emperor’s greatest payment is praise, universal fame, and obeisance for his benefactions, and the statues and temples and sanctuaries that they receive from their subjects. These are all wages for the care and forethought which they apply to always providing for and improving the commonweal. To compare small things with great ones, if you will, start from the top of the heap and go down to each of its components, and you will see that . . . all of us alike are wage-­earners.83

81. Ball 1902, 77. Von Wilamowitz-­Moellendorff (1912 [1905], 248) similarly assumes that Lucian thought that making fun of emperor worship would be too risky. Helm (1906, 163–­64) uses the omission of emperor worship in Deor. Conc. to argue for extensive borrowing from Menippus, while for Caster (1937, 358–­60) it supports his understanding of Lucian as being out of touch with his own time; on this debate see also chapter 1. 82. Alex. 48: θεὸς Μάρκος. As was customary, Lucian uses θεός here to render in Greek the Latin adjective divus, not the noun deus, see Bowersock 1972, 198–­99. On Alex. see chapter 6. It seems indicative of modern scholars’ unease with imperial cult that Harmon simply translates theos “Emperor” here, Harmon 1925, 235. Victor (1997, 19n82) uses the passage to date the piece after Marcus Aurelius’ death, but does not comment on it. 83. Apol. 13: ὅπου μηδὲ βασιλεὺς αὐτὸς ἄμισθός ἐστιν. οὐ φόρους λέγω οὐδὲ δασμούς  .  .  . ἀλλ᾽ ἔστι βασιλεῖ μισθὸς μέγιστος ἔπαινοι καὶ ἡ παρὰ πᾶσιν εὔκλεια καὶ τὸ ἐπὶ ταῖς εὐεργεσίαις προσκυνεῖσθαι, καὶ εἰκόνες δὲ καὶ νεῲ καὶ τεμένη, ὁπόσα παρὰ τῶν ἀρχομένων ἔχουσι, μισθοὶ καὶ ταῦτά εἰσιν ὑπὲρ τῶν φροντίδων καὶ προνοίας, ἣν ἐκφέρονται προσκοποῦντες ἀεὶ τὰ κοινὰ καὶ βελτίω ποιοῦντες. ὡς δὴ μικρὰ μεγάλοις εἰκάζειν, ἢν ἐθέλῃς ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ σωροῦ κορυφῆς ἐφ᾽ ἕκαστον τούτων ἀφ᾽ ὧν σύγκειται καταβαίνειν, ὄψει ὅτι . . . τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα μισθοφόροι ὁμοίως ἅπαντες. On Apol. see also chapter 1. Cf. Nav. 40 where “those statues and temples” (εἰκόνες δὲ ἐκεῖναι καὶ νεῴ) are imagined for a deceased king; Hafner (2017a, 118n192) interprets this as another reference to Roman emperor worship, but in the context of the piece it seems more likely that Hellenistic ruler cult is invoked, on which see further below in this section.

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The emperor is credited with “forethought” (pronoia), just as the provident gods of Stoicism and middle Platonism are, and this term anchors him specifically in Antonine imperial ideology.84 The passage has been described as “the most favorable statement in Second Sophistic literature” about emperor worship,85 but this evaluation overlooks its humorous tone. The speaker of Self-­Defense bluntly describes the machinery of imperial service as a “heap” (sōros), seemingly hinting at the sōritēs-­argument.86 The Skeptics employed this model to argue that, just as you cannot tell which additional grain turns some grains into a heap of grain, it is impossible to point to where, specifically, just some water becomes a river god, or a piece of rock becomes the divine Earth-­Mother.87 By using precisely this word Lucian calls to mind the philosophical debate over defining what gods are, and suggests that, ultimately, there is no real way to distinguish between the speaker and the divine emperor: between the emperors’ “wages” and the pay of a lowly clerk there is a difference only in degree and not in kind. Finally, the speaker’s vocabulary resembles the comic transactional framework for sacrifice that we encountered in chapter 3:88 he presents worship of the emperors by subjects in terms of exchange and reciprocity, just as was often done for sacrifice, while in fact both ritualized relationships are inherently asymmetrical. Lucian’s only explicit discussion of emperor worship is not “favorable” in a straightforward sense: it humorously problematizes the nature of the institution, and shows that Lucian was not afraid of the topic per se. So why are deified emperors absent from his divine concilia? To answer this question, I turn to Seneca’s humorous concilium, concerned almost exclusively with emperor worship, for a comparison with Lucian’s divine polis. Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, like Lucian’s Assembly of the Gods, contains a comic assembly meeting debating the question “who gets to be a god?” Here it is about one specific case: the deceased emperor Claudius who comes knocking to be let into heaven. The thematic and structural affinities between the two pieces have led some to argue that they have a shared Menippean source,89 and 84. For pronoia (i.e., providentia) on Antonine imperial coinage see Noreña 2001, 152–­60. Lucian uses pronoia almost always to describe divine providence (exceptions are Laps. 14, Pro Im. 20, Anach. 19, and Nigr. 26). See section 4 below on pronoia in I. conf. 85. Swain 2007, 41; cf. Nesselrath 2018, 185–­86; contra Bowersock (1973, 2002): “deliberately offhand and wittily irreverent.” 86. Lucian mentions the sōritēs-­argument explicitly at Symp. 30, there in connection with the Stoics who also used it, cf. Hafner 2017a, 120n195. 87. S.E., M. 1.182–­90; cf. Whitmarsh 2015, 163–­64, 171–­72. 88. E.g., compare the use of misthos and its cognates of Apol. 13 with amisthi in Sacr. 2. 89. Helm 1906, 161–­62; cf. Hall 1981, 104–­8; Jones 1986, 35. Eden (1984, 13–­17) is agnostic about direct Menippean influence, as is Relihan (1993, 75–­77). Romano Martin (2009, 409–­10) thinks it likely Lucian knew Seneca’s and Lucilius’ concilia. There are also important differences:

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even if Seneca and Lucian were not reading the same piece, they were drawing on a shared tradition of literary concilia deorum to pursue the same question. In Apocolocyntosis Jupiter does a bad job of running the meeting, while Hercules tries to bribe the gods to help him get Claudius deified (Apoc. 9). Just as in Lucian, the gods are depicted as anything but model citizens. Janus fulfills the role of Momus in arguing for stricter criteria for divinity, and complaining about those who have recently become gods: “Once it was a great thing to become a god, now you have made it a ‘Bean’ farce.”90 He demands that in the future no human ever be deified, including Claudius. Whoever is hereafter “made a god, called a god, or depicted as one” will be denied access and punished.91 Janus is irked by Claudius’ being a human, and by the fact that deification has become too common. Claudius is consistently unintelligible to others. This is a joke both about his speech impediment and his provenance: his language is said to be “not Greek nor Roman nor of any known people.”92 Hercules is sent to talk to him because he has traveled so widely that he may be able to find out where Claudius is from. Claudius’ temple in Britannia is criticized (Apoc. 8.3), and Janus, going even further than Lucian’s Momus and Zeus in this regard, wants fraudulently deified humans to be punished for the cult they receive (Apoc. 9.3). The death knell for Claudius’ deification—­in the context of the piece—­ comes from another deified emperor: Augustus. His indignation stems from Claudius’ cruelty as emperor, specifically against his own relatives and associates, and he simply finds the idea of Claudius as god unseemly: Now you want to make this man a god? Look at his body, born when the gods were angry. In short, let him say three words in quick succession, and he may have me for a slave. Who will worship this god? Who will Apoc. is not a dialogue but a narrative by an anonymous speaker who, in an elaborate distancing device, emphasizes that he received the story from an unreliable source; it includes many more verse passages than Deor. Conc. or I. trag.; it is hybrid even in its language, as it includes several Greek lines. 90. Sen., Apoc. 9: “Olim” inquit “magna res erat deum fieri: iam Fabam mimum fecisti.” Text from Eden 1984. Janus may be responding to Hercules directly here. The expression “Fabam mimum” also occurs at Cic., Att. 1.16.13 with reference to apotheosis, for further discussion see Eden 1984, 109–­10. Whatever its precise allusion, Janus clearly is making a contrast between the elevated honor of being a god and the lowly connotation of beans. 91. Sen., Apoc. 9: qui contra hoc senatus consultum deus factus dictus pictusve erit. As Eden (1984, 111) notes, what Janus has in mind precisely in terms of punishment is unclear here. 92. Sen., Apoc. 5: nec Graecum esse nec Romanum nec ullius gentis notae. Cf. Apoc. 6: “what he said, nobody understood” (quid diceret nemo intellegebat). There is a possible, implicit connection between Claudius’ own foreignness and his (alleged) offers of citizenship to many “Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards and Britons” at Apoc. 3; see on the historicity of this claim Eden 1984, 152–­55; cf. Tacoma 2020, 44–­55.

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believe in him? When you create gods such as these, no one will believe that you are gods.93 Augustus’ sentiment that if creatures like Claudius can become divine, belief in the gods will be undermined as such closely resembles Momus’ exasperation at having to share heaven with Dionysus’ animallike attendants.94 After Augustus’ speech the gods immediately vote against Claudius’ deification, seemingly understanding that opposition would be futile, and he is summarily brought down to the underworld by Mercury (Apoc. 11.6). Although in this divine assembly Augustus supplants Jupiter in concluding the assembly proceedings, the political process is cut short by an autocratic ruler all the same. Augustus claims that in rejecting Claudius as a god he tries to defend the dignity of the other gods, himself included of course, while Janus simply argues that too many have been admitted as gods, and sees Claudius’ case as a good time to put a stop to this. The depiction of Claudius as an ugly, foreign intruder is part of the strategy of Augustus and the other gods to protect their elite club.95 In this sense too they behave just like Lucian’s Momus and Zeus in Assembly of the Gods. In both concilia number and nature of gods are presented as factors that potentially or actually undermine human regard for the gods. Too large a number of gods is seen already in Cicero as a starting point for questioning worship, and this became a popular motif in the imperial period.96 The threat appears to be dilution of honor and power: the Lucianic image of many gods fighting over a limited amount of sacrificial offerings visualizes this idea, with the offerings representing honor commanded and received.97 As to the nature of the gods, Lucian’s Momus and Seneca’s Augustus both argue that ugly, animallike gods negatively impact the respect for the gods as a group; gods must be beautiful and anthropomorphic instead. Paradoxically, within their narratives Apocolocyntosis and Assembly of the Gods show gods invested in upholding standards of divinity that will allow humans to look up to the gods, while the narratives themselves depict the gods as comically petty, unscrupulous, and unorganized. Seneca’s Augustus, cast in a more favorable light than any character in Apocolocyntosis or Assembly of the 93. Sen., Apoc. 11: hunc nunc deum facere vultis? videte corpus eius dis iratis natum. ad summam, tria verba cito dicat, et servum me ducat. hunc deum quis colet? quis credet? dum tales deos facitis, nemo vos deos esse credet. 94. Deor. Conc. 4 and 12, see section 2 above. Cf. Eden 1984, 124; Tacoma 2020, 52–­53. 95. Cf. Chaudhuri (2014, 131–­33), who draws a parallel with Heracles’ contested apotheosis in Sen., Her. F. 96. Cic., ND 1.84. On the turba deorum-­motif see Uden 2019, who traces the phrase back to a fragment from Sen., Superst., but does not mention Apoc. 97. See chapter 3.

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Gods, argues that Claudius cannot be deified because of his glaring lack of virtue. The piece has been claimed as an attempt to salvage imperial cult, featuring a negative (Claudius) and a positive (Augustus) example of rulership for Nero.98 Rens Tacoma has recently argued that the piece targets the absurdity of having the senate debate “an imperial matter . . . that defied rational verification,” and ridicules even Augustus, though his (initial) hesitation to participate in the assembly is still exemplary.99 Emulation of the virtue of the gods by emperors was central to the justification of deification.100 Plutarch, when he discusses the phenomenon, emphatically privileges virtue as a criterion for a deceased ruler’s divinity over legislation.101 Lucian, likewise, shows himself aware of the importance of this in Self-­Defense, where the worship that the emperor receives is described as “wages” for his pronoia, an emphatically divine virtue. In Assembly of the Gods, however, Lucian’s Momus does not mention moral virtue as a criterion for divinity even once, and he rejects Virtue herself as a legitimate godhead. In addition to the political sensitivity explanation mentioned in this section above, it has also been argued that Lucian omitted the deified emperors from Assembly of the Gods and Tragic Zeus because he did not find emperor worship remarkable,102 or because they did not receive “cult equal to that of the long established Olympians.”103 Such explanations fail to convince, nor are they necessary: as Momus’ diatribe shows, the Olympian gods in Lucian are so utterly lacking in virtue, and not expected to be otherwise, that there is no room for deified emperors in these narratives. Apocolocyntosis alludes to the difficulty of requiring to-­be-­deified emperors to emulate divine virtue obliquely when Augustus contrasts Claudius’ crimes against his family with Jupiter’s behavior, “who only ever broke Vulcan’s leg” (Apoc. 11.1). Audiences would know that Jupiter in fact perpetrated far worse deeds against his kin. In Apocolocyntosis Augustus gets away with this, and virtue as a criterion for divinity is allowed to stand, but divine moral virtue is so far removed from Lucian’s divine concilia,   98. Cole 2008, 176, 181–­82.   99. Tacoma 2020, 44, 58–­59. 100. On emperor worship in the Roman East Price (1984) is still authoritative; for an overview of recent scholarship on emperor worship in general see McIntyre 2019. 101. Plu., Rom. 28, Aristid. 6; cf. Bowersock 1973, 188–­92. 102. Bowersock (1973, 187) attributes this attitude in a general sense to Greek-­speaking authors of the period; compare Goldhill (2006b, 126–­27) who argues that modern fascination with imperial cult has been an obstacle to studying other types of religious practices in the Roman East. 103. Jones 1986, 38. The problem is that this is also true of some of the divinities that Momus does rail against, notably Heimarmenē and Physis. For Deor. Conc. Oliver’s (1980) interpretation arguably solves the problem, since deified emperors had nowhere near the appropriate parentage, see further n42 above.

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that the issue of admitting allegedly virtuous emperors into the gods’ ranks is incommensurate with the terms of the debate. Lucian’s treatment of other ruler cults, specifically Alexander of Macedon’s claims to divinity, underscore the centrality of virtue to this discourse. In Dialogues of the Dead his own father Philip makes fun of Alexander for having joined him in the underworld, which belies the divine parentage his son boasted during his lifetime. Alexander admits to knowingly deceiving everyone about being the son of Zeus Ammon: although he did not believe the prophecies, he still wielded them to scare enemies and gain military advantage. Father and son engage in a debate on Alexander’s virtues, which Philip seeks to downplay. In the process the comically contradictory nature of ruler worship, especially of living kings, is fully explored. Whatever Alexander did accomplish was disappointing when considered the work of a god, while his wounds, which would be heroic for a mortal, cause onlookers to burst out laughing: as a god he is supposed to be invulnerable (D. mort. 12.5).104 Just as in Self-­Defense, Lucian shows himself willing to ridicule ruler cult generally, and the difficulty of measuring mor(t)al virtue against immortal criteria in particular. The absence of Alexander, Augustus, and other divine rulers from debates such as Assembly of the Gods is not due to irrelevance or perceived sensitivity, but to the fact that their supposed divinity, such as it is, resides in a category that Lucian will not apply to the Olympians.

Divine Law and (Dis)Order In the final section of this chapter we see the gods turning outward to attend to human affairs, attempting to impose their justice, if that is what it is, on men directly. As discussed in section 1 above, in ancient thought the notion of divine law could be applied on different levels. The Stoics understood the kosmos as a whole to be governed by a universal and just divine principle; middle Platonists imagined a just, good, and provident divine godhead steering human affairs.105 A less demanding theological idea was the interpretation of the gods as guarantors of justice among humans, which found its expression in everyday 104. Cf. D. mort. 25.2, where Hannibal claims he is better than Alexander because he did not have to pretend to be a god to win his victories. In D. mort. 13 Alexander is presented as having believed in his own divinity, and being sorely disappointed upon arrival in the underworld. For an overview of Hellenistic ruler cult see Petrovic 2015. 105. On providence in imperial Stoicism see Brouwer 2020; for middle Platonism see Boys-­ Stones 2016; Vimercati and Brouwer 2020, 8–­11; Rist 2020, 27–­28.

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life in invocations of the gods by name during legal proceedings,106 and the practice of making an accused person swear an exculpatory oath in a sanctuary, which is well-­attested through inscriptions particularly in Asia Minor.107 Both forms of escalating issues of order and legality between humans to the realm of the gods attribute privileged or even exclusive authority over dispensing justice to the divine, which means that any apparent injustice and unfairness in the world requires an explanation in order to uphold the theodicy. In Tragic Zeus, Zeus Refuted, and Double Indictment Lucian gives the gods the opportunity to provide such explanations themselves, as they are being challenged to do so, directly or indirectly, by enterprising humans of various stripes. Max Weber, in a 1916 essay, coined the phrase “theodicy of good fortune” (die Theodizee des Glückes): those who have a large share of wealth, honor, and power turn to religion in order to convince themselves that “he has a right to his good fortune” and that “he deserves it in comparison with others.”108 Richard Gordon, in turn, applied Weber’s model to the “close nexus between sacrifice, benefaction and domination by the élite” in the Roman Empire.109 Both the Stoic and middle Platonist understanding of divine providence partake of this ideology of good fortune, thus confirming that “those who were at any moment in control deserved to be where they were”;110 adverse outcomes are due to one’s own attitude, marked by a lack of virtue or understanding.111 All three pieces to be discussed in this section give the lie to this theodicy of good fortune: Lucian has his interlocutors point out that bad things happen to good people and vice versa. The gods, primarily Zeus, account for this either by pointing to the logistic challenge of dispensing justice and fairness to all (Double Indictment), or by deflecting responsibility away from the gods and onto fate (Tragic Zeus, Zeus Refuted). The difficulty of reconciling suffering and injustice in the world with the existence of a good and provident divine predates the second century CE by far (and continues to be debated to this day), but Lucian’s treatment of it closely 106. On the (limited role of) divine appeals in Athenian political and legal oratory see Martin 2009 and 2016; see Willey (2016) for perceptions of the role of the divine in lawmaking. 107. Chaniotis 2004, 30–­34. 108. Weber 1991 [1916], 271. On Weber see also the Introduction. 109. Gordon 1990a, 235. 110. Gordon 1990a, 238. 111. Stoics reconcile the existence of evil with their divine theodicy inter alia through determinism (blaming fate), and through the argument that the gods dispense suffering as an opportunity to show moral strength, in proportion to what each individual is able to bear, see e.g., Sen., Prov. 2.3–­4, 3.3, 4.11–­16, 6.5, cf. Tieleman 2020. Lucian engages explicitly with the former argument, but not with the latter, although presumably the notion that the gods would be able to dutifully measure out the right amount of suffering to everyone would meet with the same ridicule as the idea that they are able to measure out fair amounts of fortune to all humans individually (see below in this section).

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approximates the spirit of other works of the period, from Aesopic fable to imperial philosophy. This common ground shows that with his comedic probing of divine justice Lucian intended to weigh in on an issue that he knew would have preoccupied his audience members, and that he did so purposefully using terms and motifs that would have been familiar to them. Lucian’s piece Double Indictment features, as we have seen in chapter 1, a trial: an unnamed Syrian is sued by Oratory and Dialogue; gods and humans participate together in the conduct of legal proceedings. The gods’ role of guarantors of justice, as commonly attributed to the divine by his contemporaries, becomes tangible by their presiding over the Athenian Areopagus court in person, for which Aeschylus’ Eumenides provides the literary precedent.112 Just as with the divine assemblies from the previous sections, the divine court does not run smoothly, which implicitly asks audience members how precisely they imagine gods’ being in charge of justice between humans to work. The divine court is exceedingly sluggish. Many pending lawsuits are so old that the parties have to be brought up from the underworld to conduct the trial (Bis acc. 12). Smaller problems are Dike’s suggestion that Hermes has been bribed to put the case against “the Syrian” on the day’s docket (Bis acc. 14), and Dike’s own glaring disinterest in serving justice, as she allows Diogenes simply to batter his prosecutor Banking (Argyramoibike, Bis acc. 24), and convicts Pyrrho by default for not appearing at his trial (Bis acc. 25).113 Zeus is glaringly absent from the proceedings after the trial has started. Although two cases are referred to him, they are left undecided in the dialogue.114 Hermes tries to save on fees by having the same jurors decide both cases against “the Syrian” (Bis acc. 14). The biggest joke, however, is the fact that both the divine and human actors in the trial make a mockery of justice. The humans are quarrelsome, selfish, and ruthless, while the gods are either overworked (Zeus), or lazy and opportunistic (Dike and Hermes). Zeus, in his opening monologue, criticizes the philosophers for arguing that the gods live in a state of perfect blessedness: 112. Bis acc. clearly alludes to A., Eu. simply by being set at the Areopagus; additionally, at Bis. acc. 4, Zeus tells Dike to sit next to τὰς σεμνὰς θεάς, i.e., the Eumenides, cf. Harmon 1921, 93n1. On the Athenian setting of Bis acc. see Nesselrath 2009, 128–­30. On the increased significance of the Areopagus in the Roman period see Geagan 1967, 32–­61; Rawson 1985. 113. In Athenian law those who did not appear in court after being summoned were indeed convicted by default (Thür 2006), but in Roman law this was not always the case (Gizewski 2006). 114. At Bis acc. 4 and 12 it is stated that parties can appeal to Zeus when they believe they have had an unjust hearing. At Bis acc. 22 Stoa wants to do just that in the case against Dionysius the Convert, and in Bis acc. 23 Dike refers the case of Aristippus to Zeus because the prosecutors fight over who gets to speak first. Zeus, however, has been silent since Bis acc. 7 and both cases are left dangling.

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A pest on all those philosophers who say that there is absolute happiness only among the gods! If they knew all that we suffer for humans, they would not deem us happy on account of our nectar or ambrosia, putting their trust in Homer, that blind fraud, who calls us blessed and relates the things that are in heaven, while he could not even see what is on earth.115 Lucian has Zeus conflate three different theologies here: the Epicurean gods who enjoy perfect, unperturbed happiness (eudaimonia), the Stoic gods who exert themselves for humans in divine providence, and the Homeric gods who sit around on Olympus enjoying their divine victuals.116 This mixing of hard to reconcile ideas is programmatic for the piece, which aims to point out the faults of each by means of comic confusion. In what follows Zeus argues that the gods are extremely busy tending to human matters at all times. Helius has to be in his sun chariot all day, Apollo runs back and forth between the sites of his oracles at high speed or else the reputation of his prophetic skill will collapse, and Asclepius is constantly pestered by the sick (Bis acc. 1). Nobody, however, is as busy as Zeus himself, who not only has to oversee the activities of the other gods as their “king and father,” but also must “look in all directions and at everything at the same time . . . to see who is stealing, who is committing perjury, who is making sacrifice . . . who is calling out in sickness or at sea . . . while also attending the hecatomb sacrifice at Olympia . . . and feasting with the Ethiopians.”117 If Zeus were to fall asleep even for a moment, “Epicurus would straight away be right,” in claiming that the gods are not provident.118 All this complaining leads up to Zeus’ central point: the reason that the lawsuits humans filed with the gods have become “already spoiled by mildew and spider webs,” is not the carelessness (oligōria) of the gods, but rather their lack of free time (ascholia), that which, says Zeus sarcastically, people refer to as their eudaimonia.119 115. Bis acc. 1: ἀλλ᾽ ἐπιτριβεῖεν ὁπόσοι τῶν φιλοσόφων παρὰ μόνοις τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν φασὶν εἶναι τοῖς θεοῖς. εἰ γοῦν ᾔδεσαν ὁπόσα τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἕνεκα πάσχομεν, οὐκ ἂν ἡμᾶς τοῦ νέκταρος ἢ τῆς ἀμβροσίας ἐμακάριζον Ὁμήρῳ πιστεύσαντες ἀνδρὶ τυφλῷ καὶ γόητι, μάκαρας ἡμᾶς καλοῦντι καὶ τὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ διηγουμένῳ, ὃς οὐδὲ τὰ ἐν τῇ γῇ καθορᾶν ἐδύνατο. I follow Braun (1994, 38) in translating τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν with “absolute happiness.” At VH 2.20 Homer is not blind at all, cf. Kim 2010, 162–­68. 116. E.g., at Il. 1.598. 117. Bis acc. 2: ἀλλά με δεῖ καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ποιεῖν ἀποβλέπειν δὲ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον ἁπανταχόσε καὶ πάντα ἐπισκοπεῖν . . . τοὺς κλέπτοντας, τοὺς ἐπιορκοῦντας, τοὺς θύοντας, εἴ τις ἔσπεισε . . . τίς νοσῶν ἢ πλέων ἐκάλεσεν, καὶ . . . ἒν τε Ὀλυμπίᾳ τῇ ἑκατόμβῃ παρεῖναι . . . καὶ ἐν Αἰθίοψιν εὐωχεῖσθαι. Cf. Il. 1.423–­24. 118. Bis acc. 2: εἰ γάρ τί που καὶ μικρὸν ἐπινυστάσωμεν, ἀληθὴς εὐθὺς ὁ Ἐπίκουρος, ἀπρονοήτους ἡμᾶς ἀποφαίνων τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς πραγμάτων. 119. Bis acc. 3: ἰδοὺ γέ τοι ὑπ᾽ ἀσχολίας τοσαύτας ἑώλους δίκας φυλάττομεν ἀποκειμένας

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The absurdity of imagining the gods as excruciatingly busy is likely in origin an Epicurean argument against all-­encompassing divine providence, meant to show that it is simply impossible. As such it predated Lucian, and, at least in part thanks to him, would continue to be used into the twenty-­first century. In a fragment from Menander’s Epitrepontes a character named Onesimos asks a Smikrines if he really thinks that “the gods have so much free time as to distribute bad and good every day to each man?”120 Calculating that there are a thousand towns with thirty thousand inhabitants each, Onesimos argues that this would mean that “the gods live a laborious life,”121 which is a conclusion they both agree has to be rejected. In Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods Velleius the Epicurean similarly says to Balbus the Stoic: “Your god we should call terribly overworked.”122 Many centuries later the Italian humanist and Lucian fan, Giordano Bruno, used the same motif to great effect, when in his Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (Spaccio de la bestia trionfante) Mercury explains how Jupiter concerns himself with the number of maggots to be born in the dung of someone’s ox—­among many, many other things.123 Most recently, the New Atheist Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion imagined that “God constantly keeps a finger on each and every particle,” to make fun of theologians’ trying to reconcile divine intelligent design with modern science.124 In Double Indictment, rather than just depicting the gods as busy (or lazy), Lucian also shows the consequences of this, thereby evoking another well-­ known Epicurean argument against divine providence: the tardiness of (supposedly) divine punishments. One of Plutarch’s dialogues, titled On the Delays of Divine Vengeance, is devoted entirely to refuting this charge by laying out the many sound reasons why gods punish crimes late.125 Lucian’s image of lawsuits covered in mildew and cobwebs finds a close parallel in one of Babrius’ versified fables: Hermes has written down crimes on potsherds (ostraka), which lie “jumbled on top of each other” in a box, and fall into Zeus’ hands out of chronὑπ᾽ εὐρῶτος ἤδη καὶ ἀραχνίων διεφθαρμένας  .  .  . ἀγνοοῦντες ὡς οὐκ ὀλιγωρίᾳ τὰς κρίσεις ὑπερημέρους συνέβη γενέσθαι, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ τῆς εὐδαιμονίας ᾗ συνεῖναι ἡμᾶς ὑπολαμβάνουσιν. τοῦτο γὰρ τὴν ἀσχολίαν καλοῦσιν. 120. Men., Epitr. 1084–­86: οἴει τοσαύτην τοὺς θεοὺς ἄγειν σχολὴν / ὥστε τὸ κακὸν καὶ τἀγαθὸν καθ’ ἡμέραν / νέμειν ἑκάστῳ, Σμικρίνη; 121. Men., Epitr. 1091: λέγεις γὰρ ἐπίπονόν τιν’ αὐτοὺς ζῆν [βίον. Cf. Braun 1994, 76. At Epitr. 1094–­98 Onesimus defends the theodicy by adopting a Platonic daimōn inspired by Pl., R. 379C, 617D–­E. On philosophy in Epitr. see Barigazzi 1965, 209–­10; Gaiser 1967, 26–­30; Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 378–­79; Vogt-­Spira 1992, 180. 122. Cic., ND 1.52: vestrum vero laboriosissimum; cf. Pease 1968 [1958], 330–­31. For a sarcastic inversion of the same motif see Juv. 6.393–­95. 123. Bruno 2004 [1584], 132. On Lucian’s influence on Spaccio see Spampanato 1902, 15–­22; on Bruno’s Epicureanism see Greenblatt 2011, 233–­41. 124. Dawkins 2006, 148, cf. ibid., 154. 125. Plu., De sera 548B–­568A.

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ological order; this is why some crimes are punished early and some late.126 This fable—­just as the two other fables I discuss in this section below—­likely entered the Aesop-­tradition no earlier than Babrius, who lived in Asia Minor in the first or second century CE; such narratives, then, may well have been the product of a cultural context Lucian shared.127 Lucian’s Zeus concludes his enumeration of the gods’ difficult tasks saying: “We work hard at all those things on account of our love for humans.”128 While the Homeric gods do also exert themselves for (half-­)humans by heeding prayers and noticing sacrifices,129 Zeus’ account of divine philanthrōpia in Double Indictment is firmly post-­Homeric, resonating especially with Stoic and Platonic theology, as well as imperial ideology. As discussed in chapter 2, the notion of an exclusively good and just divine occurs in Plato for the first time.130 In Stoicism divine philanthrōpia becomes a core concept, seen to be present both in how the gods have created the kosmos specifically with humans in mind, and in how they continuously dispense their justice and benevolence to us; this all-­encompassing divine providence, Stoics maintain, is nonetheless effortless.131 In middle Platonism the benevolent providence of the gods comes to be privileged over the rest of Plato’s corpus, and Plutarch, for instance, frequently attributes philanthrōpia to the divine.132 But even Lucian’s contemporary Aelius Aristides, readily identifiable neither as a Stoic nor as a Platonist, insists on attaching the virtue of philanthrōpia to the gods.133 Finally, this particular divine virtue was attributed to the Antonine emperors Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius,134 which brings us full circle: both in Dio and in Plutarch, as we have seen in the opening of this chapter, rulers are advised to emulate the gods in precisely this respect.135 Weaving together, as Lucian does, the strong divine anthropomorphism of epic with divine philanthrōpia cannot but generate the highly comic scenario of overworked, failing gods. If the gods are anything like humans, managing the 126. Babrius 127 (= Perry 313): τῶν ὀστράκων δὲ κεχυμένων ἐπ᾿ ἀλλήλοις / τὸ μὲν βράδιον τὸ δὲ τάχιον ἐμπίπτει / εἰς τοῦ Διὸς τὰς χεῖρας. 127. Holzberg 2002 [1993], 52–­62. On the iambic mode in Babrius see Hawkins 2014, 87–­136. 128. Bis acc. 1: πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα ὑπὸ φιλανθρωπίας οἱ θεοὶ πονοῦσιν. 129. Gods hearing prayer: Il. 1.43; noticing sacrifice: Il. 4.48–­49. 130. Xenophon’s Socrates specifically uses the concept philanthrōpia to describe the care of the gods for humans, Mem. 4.3.6–­7; cf. Sandridge 2012, 43; Ellis 2016, 79–­80. In Plato individual gods can be described as philanthrōpos (Eros at Smp. 189C–­D; Cronus at Lg. 713D), and at Ap. 41C–­D Socrates describes the gods’ caring for (good) men. 131. E.g., Cic., ND 2.79–­165, benevolence at 2.131, effortlessness at 2.59. Cf. Braun 1994, 51; Rist 2020, 27–­29. On divine philanthrōpia in Dio see the introduction to this chapter above. 132. E.g., Plu., Amat. 758A; Ad princ. 781A; cf. Brouwer and Vimercati 2020, 4–­5. 133. Aristid., Or. 37.17; 38.24; 39.5, 11; 41.10; 42.12; 45.26; 46.9; cf. Parker 2016, 76. 134. D.C. 71.14 (Marcus Aurelius); Paus. 8.43.5 (Antoninus Pius), cf. Braun 1994, 79n1. 135. Plu., Ad princ. 781A; D. Chr. 2.26.

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entire universe justly and benevolently at all times will be impossibly tiresome for them, especially for the man at the top. In Double Indictment Lucian’s Zeus rejects Epicurean, Platonic, and Stoic solutions to reconciling divine providence with divine blessedness in equal measure. The gods are neither blessedly disinterested in human affairs, nor is the slowness of divine punishment part of a benevolent long-­term strategy to track human attitudes meticulously: they are, rather, overwhelmed, incompetent, and unhappy to the point of self-­ pity. Lucian’s dialogue is intensely topical, and employs the philosophical catch phrases of his day. By illustrating the impossible magnitude of the task of philanthropic divine providence the piece comes close to endorsing the Epicurean argument, but stops just short of doing so. Disinterested gods, it seems, would be too unsatisfying for Lucianic comedy: what use are gods if you cannot blame them for anything? In Zeus Refuted and Tragic Zeus Lucian’s focus shifts from the practicability of divine justice and providence to the balance of power between the gods, primarily Zeus, on the one hand, and fate or the Fates on the other. The question of why bad things happen to good people becomes more pointed: with divine incompetence put aside, interlocutors turn their attention to the gods’ culpability. Zeus Refuted is a conversation between Zeus and a pesky Cynic philosopher named Cyniscus. The dialogue starts out as a quasi prayer. Cyniscus says that he will not request anything valuable, but has just one, simple wish: to ask Zeus a question. Unlike most prayers, Cyniscus’ immediately gets answered by Zeus in his own voice. He gladly grants the wish. Cyniscus asks whether what Homer and Hesiod sing about Destiny and the Fates—­that they spin out the thread of our lives at birth—­is true. Zeus confirms this (I. conf. 1–­2). Once Zeus has admitted that the Fates determine everything and the gods cannot change anything, Cyniscus concludes, as we saw in chapter 3, that sacrifice is useless. In fact, he wonders out loud how the gods are still superior, now that they are “fellow-­slaves with humans,” together subject to the Fates; the gods’ immortality makes them worse off than us—­we at least are freed by death, while the gods’ slavery is eternal.136 Zeus counters in Epicurean vein that the gods’ eternity is “happy” and filled with “good things,”137 which opens the door for Cyniscus to rattle off all the times gods have been subject to emotional pain (falling in love) and physical suffering (wounded, enslaved, imprisoned, kidnapped, I. conf. 8). At a loss how else to respond, Zeus threatens his interlocutor. Cyniscus scoffs: Zeus cannot do anything to him that has not already been decreed by the Fates. This brings the conversation to the problem of theodicy. 136. I. conf. 7: ὁμοδούλους τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὄντας. Cf. e.g., Sen., Prov. 5.8. 137. I. conf. 8: ἀλλ᾽ ὦ Κυνίσκε, τὸ ἀΐδιον τοῦτο καὶ ἄπειρον εὔδαιμον ἡμῖν ἐστιν καὶ ἐν ἅπασιν ἀγαθοῖς ἡμεῖς βιοῦμεν.

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Cyniscus mockingly says that temple robbers get away with their crimes because it was not “fated” for them to get punished (I. conf. 9). In general, many bad people have escaped punishment, while good people, like Socrates, have suffered grave misfortune (I. conf. 16–­17).138 This injustice is still going on, says Cyniscus: Do not get me started on how things are now. Terrible and greedy people get to be happy, good people get pushed around, squeezed by poverty and disease, and innumerable other afflictions.139 Zeus counters that the good spend the afterlife in happiness, while the bad, temple robbers first, are punished (I. conf. 18). But Cyniscus is not convinced. He will not know until after he dies whether or not the afterlife exists, let alone if it is as Zeus describes. The piece ends in quasi-­Socratic aporia. Cyniscus asks how only three Fates could possibly attend to all that happens on earth and in heaven, saying that they must have a life that is “laborious and ill-­fated” (pun intended, of course)140—­a return, in effect, to the Epicurean argument against divine providence.141 He does not wait for a response, but concludes, with barely disguised irony, that Zeus’ answers about destiny and providence were “adequate” and he was perhaps “not fated to hear the rest.”142 The behavior of Lucian’s Cyniscus exemplifies Diogenes of Oenoanda’s attack on the limited utility of believing in divine punishment. He argues in his inscription that men do not become just on account of the “judges of Plato and Socrates and Hades”—­if they already scorn the laws, they will scorn “stories” (mythoi) much more.143 Good people are just on account of their wisdom, while the multitudes act justly because they fear the penalties of the laws. The belief in divine punishment, concludes Diogenes, helps no one. 138. For Socrates as a test case in this philosophical debate compare Sen., Prov. 3.12–­13. 139. I. conf. 17: ἵνα ὑμῖν μὴ τὰ νῦν λέγω καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐπεξιών, τοὺς μὲν πονηροὺς εὐδαιμονοῦντας καὶ τοὺς πλεονέκτας, ἀγομένους δὲ καὶ φερομένους τοὺς χρηστοὺς ἐν πενίᾳ καὶ νόσοις καὶ μυρίοις κακοῖς πιεζομένους. 140. I. conf. 19: ἐπίπονον γάρ τινα καὶ οὐκ εὔμοιρον . . . τὸν βίον. Cf. Bis acc. 2 where Zeus describes the fact that he has to be at several places at once as ἐπιπονώτατον. There is also a verbal echo of Men., Epitr. 1091 (see n121), which could be an allusion to the play (Lucian quotes Epitr. at I. trag. 53), or could be due to the word epiponos being a charged, designated term for philosophical discussions of what the life of the gods must not be like. 141. Cf. Größlein 1998, 87–­90. 142. I. conf. 19: ἱκανὰ γὰρ ἐμφανίσαι τὸν περὶ τῆς Εἱμαρμένης καὶ Προνοίας λόγον· τὰ λοιπὰ δ᾽ ἴσως οὐχ εἵμαρτο ἀκοῦσαί μοι. This passage shows close affinity with Oenomaus of Gadara, who treats fate, providence, and free will in the context of oracles, on these issues see chapter 6. 143. Diog. Oen. NF 126 IV.5–­7: τοὺς Πλάτωνος καὶ Σωκράτους ἐν ῞Α(ι)δου δικαστάς. Text and translation from Hammerstaedt and Smith 2014, 263–­70. This is a reference, of course, to Plato’s afterlife mythoi in Grg., R., and Phd., which were central to middle Platonism.

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Cyniscus’ argument that gods and humans are “fellow slaves,” as the gods distinguish themselves only by the now pitiable attribute of immortality, connects with the debates from Assembly of the Gods and Tragic Zeus about what features (dis)qualify one for divinity. His claim that gods are subject to emotions and hardship echoes the arguments against the possibility of perfect and immortal gods catalogued by Sextus Empiricus: if gods have all virtues, they have insight, which means that they know good and bad things; in order to understand hardship, they must experience it, and therefore be subject to change for the worse and, ultimately, perishable, which they cannot be.144 Finally, when Cyniscus brings up temple robbers who escape punishment, he uses a motif that is frequently connected to religious doubt and disbelief in this period; Momus, as we saw in section 2 of this chapter, points to an increase in temple robbery as a sign that humans look down on the gods, and the same association occurs in Dio Chrysostom and Babrius.145 Babrius’ collection, in addition to the fable concerning the problematically messy accounting of Hermes and Zeus, contains two more narratives on the problem of theodicy. In one, we learn the story of a farmer who lost his mattock, and brings his farm hands into the city, in order to make them swear an exculpatory oath in the temple. They are about to enter, when a messenger announces that a thousand drachmas would be paid for information about goods that had been stolen from the god. When the farmer hears this he says: It was pointless for me to come here. How could a god, who does not even know who stole his own property and offers a reward to a human to find out about them instead, know about other thieves?146 Successful, unavenged temple robbery was a vivid and effective topos in critiques of divine retributive justice: if thieves can get away with it even under the gods’ noses, how would gods be able to punish evildoers operating elsewhere? The other fable takes aim at the bluntness of the instrument of divine punishment: a bystander complains that it is unjust for a whole ship and crew to sink on account of one irreverent passenger. He is promptly attacked by a swarm of ants. After being bitten by one he tramples the bulk of them. Hermes appears and gloats: gods treat men the way the bystander treats ants, so he should not

144. S.E., M. 1.162–­66. On gods and emotions see also chapter 4. 145. Deor. Conc. 12; cf. Tox. 2, I. trag. 19, 25; D. Chr. 3.53. 146. Babrius 2 (= Perry 295): ὡς μάτην ἥκω· / κλέπτας γὰρ ἄλλους πῶς ὁ θεὸς ἂν εἰδείη, / ὃς τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ φῶρας οὐχὶ γινώσκει, / ζητεῖ δὲ μισθοῦ μή τις οἶδεν ἀνθρώπων;

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complain about human collateral damage.147 In highly Lucianic vein, Hermes’ witty and disconcerting answer completely subverts the notion that the gods might set exemplary standards of morality. In Lucian’s Zeus Refuted and in Babrius’ fable about Hermes the gods are imagined as being directly confronted with the challenge of the existence of evil in the world; in both narratives the gods try to defend themselves but are made to look either foolish or cruel in the process. Zeus Refuted is enmeshed especially with Stoic providence: Zeus’ deflections of responsibility are rooted in Stoic determinism.148 Lucian exploits one of the built-­in difficulties of Stoic providence, namely that the divine reason which orders the universe, in itself a monistic conception, can be called by such different names as Zeus, fate, and providence.149 Lucian’s Zeus espouses a Stoic determinist view, without realizing that this does not, in fact, exculpate him in any way. Just as in Double Indictment, the narrative shows gods who certainly care about human affairs, but are either unwilling or unable to do it right. The failure of this Stoic Zeus to defend the theological framework that he himself embodies is highly comical, and through this humor the dialogue carefully takes aim at the Stoic systematization of fate and providence, and the theodicy built on it.150 In our final piece, Tragic Zeus, Lucian revisits providence, fate, and theodicy, and again the gods are depicted predominantly as representatives of Stoic theology. A large part of the dialogue takes place on earth, however, with the gods looking on from up on high. The resulting paradoxes attack Stoicism on two levels at once: the exchange of the human interlocutors refutes divine providence, while the split screen of the action, as it were, visualizes the absurdity of the Stoic cosmic city shared by gods and men. The affinities between the divine councils of Tragic Zeus and Assembly of the Gods have frequently been pointed out.151 The proceedings are equally chaotic: Zeus and Hermes quibble over how to call the meeting (I. trag. 6), the gods argue about who gets to sit where (I. trag. 7–­12), and Zeus is nervous and insecure about addressing an “assembly packed to the max with gods.”152 The 147. Babrius 117 (= Perry 306). Among imperial Skeptics the existence of evil and injustice was also considered an argument against the providence of the gods, see S.E., P. 3.12. 148. Cf. Größlein 1998, 11–­13, 23–­26, 49–­59. 149. Cf. Brouwer 2020, 34–­35. 150. Contra Größlein 1998, 91–­92, who denies I. conf. any argumentative force, interpreting it instead as entertaining preaching to the choir for those who completely deny divine providence. 151. Helm 1906, 153; Bompaire 1958, 267–­68; Jones 1986, 39; Branham 1989a, 166. On the poetic allusions (tragedy, comedy, and epic) of the opening of the piece see Whitmarsh 2013, 177–­82. 152. I. trag. 14: πολυθεωτάτη γάρ, ὡς ὁρᾷς, ἐκκλησία. The superlative of πολύθεος is otherwise unattested. Cf. Van Nuffelen (2011, 195–­98) on the chaotic divine assembly in I. trag.

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debate is framed in Athenian legal terminology,153 and foreignness is again an issue. Zeus proposes that the gods should be seated according to the value of their statues, but Hermes protests that as a result “only the foreigners will sit in the front row” since Mithras, Anubis, Bendis, Attis, and Men are all solid gold,154 and Zeus tables his idea for a future meeting.155 The reason Zeus called the meeting is an argument he overheard between an Epicurean, Damis, and a Stoic, Timocles, when he visited the Stoa dressed up as a philosopher to listen in on them.156 The Epicurean had the upper hand in the debate, so Zeus ended the conversation by making night fall early (I. trag. 17); the philosophers have agreed to continue their debate, however, and Zeus asks the other gods what to do (I. trag. 18). Poseidon suggests taking out Damis with a thunderbolt, but Zeus responds that only the Fates can decide this, adding that killing the Epicurean would leave the debate unsettled, and would make the gods look like sore losers (I. trag. 25). Later on Heracles offers to simply pick up the porch and crush Damis with it. Zeus is aghast at the suggestion: in contrast to Babrius’ Hermes, he recoils at the large collateral damage. Zeus explains that while Heracles was still living he might have been able to do this, but now, as a god, he should know that only the Fates have such powers (I. trag. 32). Just as in Zeus Refuted, the father of the gods yields all power to the Fates, and his secondary, sour-­grapes arguments about the downsides to killing Damis are transparent and unconvincing. Before the gods can formulate a strategy, the philosophers resume their debate; occasional interjections from Zeus, Momus, and Hermes remind the audience that the gods are listening in, but, as if on a split stage, neither Damis nor Timocles hears them. When Damis the Epicurean challenges divine providence by pointing to evildoers going unpunished, Timocles the Stoic, in a moment of brilliant dramatic irony, warns Damis that the gods can always hear him, and that they will take revenge.157 Damis counters that the gods are too 153. See, e.g., I. trag. 21, 32. 154. I. trag. 8: οἱ βαρβαρικοὶ προεδρεύσειν μόνοι. On this passage and the topic of the embodiment of the gods in their statues see e.g., Branham 1989a, 169–­71; Romm 1990, 79–­81; Berdozzo 2011, 131–­34. On anthropomorphism and divine statuary see chapter 2. 155. I. trag. 12. Coenen (1977, 61–­62) suggests that this is a reference to Deor. Conc., though as we have seen that debate is not about hierarchy within heaven but about who gets to be there at all. As in Deor. Conc. one of the markers of foreignness is not being able to understand Greek: I. trag. 13. 156. I. trag. 16. Zeus’ downward journey evokes the Lycaon story in Ov., Met. 1.293–­332 where Jupiter goes down, also undercover, to earth to investigate rumors of impiety, only to have them confirmed dramatically; both Lucian and Ovid reverse the traditional theomachos-­motif of a human challenger traveling upward from earth to heaven, and, typically, being cast down again; on theomachy and the Lycaon-­episode see Chaudhuri 2014, 84–­89. 157. I. trag. 36; Damis (sarcastically) and Timocles (earnestly, but in a general sense)

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busy, “managing like a household, as you say, the innumerable affairs of the kosmos.”158 Likewise, they have not punished Timocles for his (unspecified) perjuries and crimes because they are away, Damis scoffs, adding: “I cannot think of any more convincing proof they could have given of their providence, than if they had destroyed you as badly as you deserve.”159 Tragic Zeus, just as Zeus Refuted, ends in a quasi-­Platonic aporia. Damis says simply that he wants to stop arguing (I. trag. 52), which enrages Timocles, who feels that he is not being taken seriously. Timocles threatens Damis with a brick and they leave the scene in pursuit, as if at the end of a play. Hermes calms Zeus down saying that there is no “very great harm” if a few people are convinced by Damis’ arguments, since many more people are not: “the majority of the Greeks and all of the barbarians.”160 Zeus is unconvinced, and responds that he still would like to have a man like Damis on his side, who got away laughing (I. trag. 53). In Tragic Zeus Lucian paints a vivid picture of a kosmos inhabited jointly by gods and humans. Damis assumes that the gods are preoccupied, absent, or even nonexistent (I. trag. 4), but the audience in their mind’s eye sees them listening in from up on high. As the Epicurean mocks the very notion of gods’ “managing the kosmos like a household (oikonomoumenoi),” the narrative tells us that they are trying in vain to do precisely this. In the dialogue we encounter yet another failed cosmic city of gods and men: the gods are both present and engaged—­in defiance of the Epicurean position—­but under the constraint of the Fates unable to intervene, while Timocles and Damis are equally unaware of their direct concern and proximity. Nonetheless, Lucian’s characterization of the gods, in Tragic Zeus and in the other assembly pieces discussed in this chapter, suggests that even if they were not under the constraint of the Fates, or if they were a little less busy, it is doubtful that they would do right by humans. He shows them taking turns being lazy, opportunistic, cruel, ignorant, self-­ pitying, or evasive. In this cosmic city the notion that gods might be good and blissful is mocked fundamentally, sparing neither the Epicurean, Stoic, or Platonic expression of it. For the unfairness of the human experience, as raised by Momus, Cyniscus, and Damis, incompetent and unpleasant gods would be a much more likely explanation than a purely good godhead.

refer to the gods as “listening” to them no fewer than four times as Lucian emphasizes this dramatic irony. 158. I. trag. 37: ὡς φῄς, πράγματα ἔχοντες καὶ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἄπειρα τὸ πλῆθος ὄντα οἰκονομούμενοι. 159. I. trag. 37: καίτοι οὐχ ὁρῶ τινα ἂν ἄλλην ἐπίδειξιν τῆς ἑαυτῶν προνοίας μείζω ἐξενεγκεῖν ἐδύναντο ἢ σὲ κακὸν κακῶς ἐπιτρίψαντες. 160. I. trag. 53: τί γὰρ καὶ ὑπέρμεγα κακόν, εἰ ὀλίγοι ἄνθρωποι πεπεισμένοι ταῦτα ἀπίασι; πολλῷ γὰρ οἱ τἀναντία γιγνώσκοντες πλείους, Ἑλλήνων ὁ πολὺς λεὼς βάρβαροί τε πάντες.

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Conclusion Lucian’s Saturnalia features an exchange both in dialogue and epistolary form between a human interlocutor and Cronus. He is a quasi-­Epicurean god here, enjoying a most pleasant life in retirement, though he does allow his blessed peace and quiet (ataraxia) to be disturbed by the interlocutor’s complaints about the rich not sharing with the poor during the Saturnalia festival. In a prosaic retelling of the famous myth, Cronus claims that he was by no means deposed and shackled by Zeus, but rather simply abdicated, with good reason: I did not have the strength to deal with all the injustice around today, but I always had to run up and down with my thunderbolt raised to set fire to perjurers, temple robbers, and violent men. It is a very laborious task, the work of a young man. So I did the right thing and abdicated to Zeus.161 As we have seen throughout this chapter, dispensing divine justice, redistributive or retributive, is a near unfeasible task. Cronus, now only in charge of the festival, deflects responsibility for the injustice of everyday life to Zeus, who is presented as completely unresponsive (Sat. 2–­3, 36); Cronus warns that it is hard to change what has been assigned by the Fates in any case (Sat. 11). Fairness, then, is impossible, and this makes what Cronus has to offer during the Saturnalia highly significant: in a universe with unreliable gods festival is necessary as a temporary suspension of the harsh realities of life. It has been suggested that the Saturnalia as a whole, and the letter exchange especially, is a commentary on the ineffectiveness of imperial bureaucracy.162 Since in imperial ideology rulers modeled themselves after the gods, striving explicitly after divine virtues and accepting quasi-­divine honors, any representation of divine shortcomings can indeed be read as reverting back onto the emperors themselves. As mentioned, Lucian’s treatment of emperor worship shows that he was not in principle averse to giving certain features of imperial ideology comic treatment. Nonetheless, audience members more often than not have to fill in for themselves what the implications are of showing the gods, whom the rulers claim to emulate, as incompetent, unjust rulers. Lucian may have been treading somewhat lightly out of political prudence. At the same 161. Sat. 7: οὐ γὰρ ἠδυνάμην διαρκεῖν πρὸς οὕτω πολλὴν ἀδικίαν τῶν νῦν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ ἀναθεῖν ἔδει ἄνω καὶ κάτω τὸν κεραυνὸν διηρμένον τοὺς ἐπιόρκους ἢ ἱεροσύλους ἢ βιαίους καταφλέγοντα, καὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα πάνυ ἐργῶδες ἦν καὶ νεανικόν. ἐξέστην οὖν εὖ ποιῶν τῷ Διί. On Sat. see also chapter 2. 162. Slater 2013, 218.

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time, in targeting the very premise of an exemplary and virtuous divine, he is making a more ambitious point. Because of their humorous tone and their engagement with the literary tradition, scholars have often interpreted the Lucianic dialogues treated in this chapter as lighthearted exercises intended to entertain elite readers, and to show off the author’s paideia and skill.163 This, however, misses the point: humor was Lucian’s chosen medium for responding to the philosophical-­theological ideas of his contemporaries. The unfeasibility of divine providence, the unlikelihood of a purely good godhead, and the problem of evil and injustice in the world, were not, by far, new problems in Lucian’s lifetime,164 but they obviously remained unresolved—­as they do today for many believers. The thematic affinity of these dialogues with works by (near) contemporary philosophers and orators, and with the popular fable narratives found in Babrius, shows that in his performances Lucian engages issues that were urgent and of great import to his audience members. Lucian’s works are deeply invested in whether or not it is likely that the gods are to blame for the state of the world. His stance is primarily critical, in that he offers no positive philosophical account of his own. In his narratives civic encounters between gods and philosophers break down, because merely by engaging the gods assert their own divine existence in a way that is incommensurate with asking philosophical questions about them. This comic paradox is in fact programmatic for Lucian’s approach. Even though he appears to have been serious about fighting the deception that the gods (and, perhaps, emperors) are worthy of admiration and imitation as flawless helmsmen of the universe, Lucian chose imaginative play and laughter, in his view more appropriate and effective than philosophical systematization, in order to do so. He addressed this comic play to a socioeconomically diverse (live) audience, including many people to whom the notion that they—­contrary to what many philosophers at the time would have them believe—­were perhaps not living in the best of all possible worlds, would ring true.

163. Braun 1994, 76n2; Bosman 2012, 793–­95. 164. Because of long-­term continuities in such debates imperial philosophers are often seen as out of step with their own time, see e.g., Bett (2017) on Sextus Empiricus; contra Karadimas (1996). On this issue for Diogenes of Oenoanda see Gordon 1996, 43–­65.

CHAPTER 6 ❦

Mediations Oracles, Seers, and Sorcerers

The old paradigm of a decline of traditional religion in the second century CE—­ as discussed in previous chapters, this view is no longer supported—­was often coupled with the understanding that at the same time there was an increased interest in nontraditional religious practices, in this context often referred to as “magic” or “superstition.” Dodds famously set out to explain this increase using methods from social psychology, and gave the period from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine the hard-­to-­shake label “age of anxiety.” He argued that psychological stresses created by unstable economic and political circumstances caused people to turn to alternative forms of religious expression. Dodds relied heavily on literary texts, and Lucian was an important source for him, in particular the biographies of Alexander of Abonuteichos and Peregrinus.1 It is impossible and unnecessary to contradict the strong interest on the part of Lucian and his contemporaries in the variety of religious practice. Dodds’ analysis is, however, undermined by the relative stability and economic prosperity in most of the Empire during the second century CE, and the continued vitality of traditional, civic religion at the time. In recent years several scholars have grappled with understanding the complexity of the spectrum of religious practices in Lucian’s lifetime, and with Dodds’ legacy. A few core questions continue to be debated: Was religious life characterized primarily by continuity or change in this period? Can we make a meaningful distinction between “traditional” and “nontraditional” religious practices? And, to what extent can we rely on our rich literary sources to tell us something about lived experiences?2 1. Dodds 1965, 59–­63. 2. Bendlin (2011 [2006]) emphasizes continuity; Van Nuffelen (2011) argues for an increased philosophical interest in religious practices, leading to more discussion of them; Bowden (2013) argues for increased individualism in religious practice, as evidenced especially in oracular consultations; the contributions in Bricault and Bonnet’s (2013) edited volume emphasize several changes with respect to increased emotionality, “philosophization,” and connectivity within the Empire.

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Lucian is, as Dodds knew, an extremely relevant author for inquiring into the broad range of ritual practices in the second century CE: aside from the holy man pseudobiographies Alexander and Peregrinus, the works Lovers of Lies, Menippus, Astrology, and Dialogues of the Hetaerae take a strong interest in incantations, curses, potions, astrology, and the like. I have already examined Lucian’s treatment of the ritual of sacrifice as attempted, ongoing communication between men and gods, which some of his characters mocked as being blatantly transactional (chapter 3), and his emphasis on violence and emotionality in divine worship shaped as (monogamous) desire (chapter 4). The ritual practices to be considered in this chapter are ones that Lucian marks out for their baroque complexity and for the affectations of their purveyors. What I mean by this is illustrated well by a joke from Lovers of Lies. A man named Glaucias retains the services of a Hyperborean mage (magos) through his philosophy tutor, Cleodemus, because he is in love with a certain Chrysis. Cleodemus describes how the mage raised the spirit of Glaucias’ dead father in order to get his permission, brought up Hecate and Cerberus from the underworld, drew down the moon, and, finally, made an Eros out of clay who flew away to get Chrysis. When she shows up, Glaucias spends the night with her. The interlocutor Tychiades, unimpressed, says to Cleodemus that for twenty minas—­the fee charged by the mage—­Chrysis could have been gotten without supernatural intervention, knowing what kind of woman she is. Also, Tychiades wonders, if the mage’s powers really are as advertised, why does he dabble with a simple man like Glaucias, instead of making the richest women of the world fall in love with himself to get their money (Philops. 14–­15)? The ritual acts in Cleodemus’ account are well attested in papyri, material culture, and other literary accounts.3 In this scene, the baroqueness of what the mage practices, as depicted by Lucian, resides in the concatenation of many different practices, their spectacular and performative nature, and the special (foreign) attire of the practitioner. Through such descriptions Lucian builds up what I will call an aesthetics of excess, which he uses to demarcate a subset of ritual practices as “magic.”4 Throughout Lovers of Lies the author emphasizes that the mage’s customers are philosophers who pride themselves on their paideia. In the scene just described the interlocutor Tychiades spits back at Cleodemus with an insult that targets Glaucias’ beloved by branding her a prostitute,5 and paints the Hyperborean mage as a greedy, dimwitted hustler. Lucian’s accounts of sorcerers and seers foreground their commercialism and 3. Ebner 2001, 53; cf. Edmonds 2019, 109–­10. 4. For “magic” as an aesthetic category cf. Frankfurter 2019, 606. 5. Ebner 2001, 53–­54.

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opportunism, alongside the (putative) hypocrisy of the philosophers who feature as eager customers. In this chapter I examine oracular practices alongside “magic” in Lucian, because both phenomena can productively be understood as complex mediations between the human and divine realms primarily for humans’ sake. Oracular and other divinatory practices are attempts to find out what the gods have in store for us, in what ways we have erred to incur their ire, or what they would advise us to do next in light of their privileged foreknowledge. Incantations and curses are attempts to harness divine agency for our specific purposes. In both areas the assistance or expertise of professional, specialized practitioners is often required, which was generally not the case for sacrificial practice. Both sets of practices are strongly human-­focused: although, as we have seen, several Lucianic interlocutors disagree, ancients did frequently argue that ritual sacrifice served to honor the gods; for the phenomena to be treated in this chapter such an argument would not work, since they are oriented directly toward human beneficiaries or victims. As mediations, oracular and “magical” practices embody an especially close (perceived) alignment between human and divine agency.6 An investigation of Lucian’s representation of these phenomena is necessary to complete the task I set myself with this book: to analyze the relationship between gods and mortals in Lucian’s corpus. The first part of this chapter concerns oracles in Lucian’s works, from the oracle of Apollo at Delphi to the oracle of Glycon the snake god in Abonuteichos. The question of the value of divination is closely bound up with one’s understanding of divine providence and theodicy. The efficacy of divine prophecy was an important component of philosophical arguments for the philanthropy of the gods, and, conversely, Lucian’s representation of oracular communication is intertwined with his critique of theologies that rely on perfect divine providence and the theodicy of good fortune. Lucian’s account of oracles and other forms of divination plays out both on Olympus—­gods tease Apollo about the efficacy of his craft—­and on earth, where humans perennially display an insatiable desire to know the future. Just as we have seen in previous chapters, Lucian’s comic approach to prophecy is in line with contemporary philosophical critiques of oracles, in this case from thinkers like Oenomaus of Gadara and Maximus of Tyre. He shares their aims, but his means are different. 6. The distinction I make here between ritual sacrifice on the one side and oracular and “magic” practice on the other is discursive, based solely on how Lucian represents each; he himself, as we will see, can also challenge the integrity of the parameters of this categorization. In reality there was much overlap: divination was an important component of sacrifice, and animal sacrifice features in certain types of spell-­casting and sorcery. See also chapter 3.

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Language and categorization have been at the forefront in studies of “magic” over the past few decades. In the second part of this chapter I examine the vocabulary Lucian uses in his descriptions of different types of sorcery, and to what extent he sets it aside as a separate category within religious practice. I contextualize Lucian’s approach with Apuleius’ defense against charges of magic in his Apologia. As an example of Lucian’s characterization of a sorcerer I focus on the piece Menippus, where the Cynic philosopher from Gadara hires a holy man to take him to the underworld. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Peregrinus, whose eponymous protagonist inhabits the fluid spaces between religion, “magic,” and philosophy more provocatively than any other Lucianic character. Lucian, like his contemporaries, was fascinated by humans’ attempts big and small to know and manipulate divine agency within their everyday lives. Such attempts presuppose an understanding of the universe in which all the gods, “those receiving famous hecatombs, middling ones, the least of them and even altogether anonymous ones” are continuously at our beck and call.7 Lucian challenges this premise, and plays with the dominant categorizations and stereotypes of religious practices, like old vs. new, native vs. foreign, and elite vs. popular. In the imperial period, a central feature of intercult competition was “the construction of sharp dichotomies distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate forms of religion” along precisely these axes.8 Lucian uses Peregrinus’ stint with Jesus-­followers as an opportunity to mock them, but elsewhere gives them the honor of being antagonists of Alexander of Abonuteichos alongside Epicureans and atheists. Curses and other types of sorcery were typically viewed as resources for people low or very low on the social ladder, like prostitutes, while enlightened, philosophical religion resided on the opposite side of the spectrum, having been developed by and for elite males. Lucian, in keeping with the stereotype, attributes a strong interest in sorcery to female sex workers, but also presents philosophers as susceptible to the lure of low brow or novel religious practices. His mockery shows that the two poles of the spectrum of religious practice, actually, are not that far apart, as they both require the gods to be tirelessly invested in human affairs. The texts discussed in this chapter are among Lucian’s most famous works, and they represent the part of the corpus that has been used most readily as evidence for the author’s own (anti)religious attitude. In order to do so, the words of characters like Tychiades in Lovers of Lies or “Lucian” in Alexander 7. I. trag. 6: ὅσσοι τε κλυτὰς δαίνυσθ᾽ ἑκατόμβας, ὅσσοι τ᾽ αὖ μέσατοι ἢ ὕστατοι ἢ μάλα πάγχυ νώνυμνοι. 8. Cf. Petsalis-­Diomidis 2010, 42.

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are ascribed directly to the historical Lucian. But this approach forces scholars to reconcile the irreconcilable. It has, for instance, recently been argued that Lucian combined a profound aversion to oracles and magical practices with an enthusiastic adherence to astrology, that he both “precludes any transcendental speculation” yet “does not deny the existence of the gods, that he venerates them, even going so far as to admit to traditional temple medicine.”9 Such illogical gymnastics do not do any justice to Lucian’s sophisticated approach to the religious mediations sought out by his contemporaries. As discussed in chapter 1, the private religious attitudes of the historical Lucian are irrecoverable precisely because he chose to hide himself. What we can do, is trace the overarching thrust in how he depicts oracles, seers, and sorcerers, and delineate the questions that he challenged his audience members to ask themselves.

Chasing Down the Future A recent monograph by Radcliffe Edmonds positions ancient ritualized practices on a scale of normativity, spanning the poles of normative “religion” on one end, and that which is considered nonnormative, “magic” on the other end.10 Divination itself can be mapped onto the same spectrum, and “is only labeled ‘magic’ when it makes claims to authority . . . as a superlatively efficacious procedure that depends on specialized arcane knowledge or, conversely, as a bit of traditional superstition that seems ineffective in comparison with the normally accepted procedures.”11 Lucian’s treatment of oracles features practices that, it would seem, ought to exist on opposite ends of the spectrum: the most famous oracle of all, Apollo’s at Delphi, and the new, out-­of-­the-­way, and outlandish oracular shrine of the snake god Glycon in Abonuteichos. But Lucian’s characterization of the two oracles runs counter to this division, as he intentionally subverts the normativity standards of his contemporaries. I start with his depiction of the oracle at Delphi across several works, which is steeped in second-­century CE philosophical arguments about prophecy. In Zeus Refuted, discussed in some detail in the previous chapter, Zeus and   9. Spickermann 2013a, 149–­50; cf. 2009; 2012; 2013b. Lucian’s encomium of astrology (Astr.) has been shown to be a parody by McNamara (2013), see also chapter 3. 10. Edmonds 2019, 9. Frankfurter’s (2019, 3–­20) approach in his edited volume on the study of ancient magic that came out in the same year is quite similar, as his phrase “illegitimate or ambiguous ritual action” appears to align closely with Edmonds’ term “non-­normative.” Frankfurter’s methodology, though, is geared more explicitly toward comparative, cross-­cultural work than Edmonds’. On “magic”-­terminology see further section 2 below. 11. Edmonds 2019, 189.

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Cyniscus also argue with each other about oracles. As we saw, Cyniscus made Zeus admit that the gods have no influence on the lives of humans, because everything is determined by the Fates. Zeus then suggests that humans should still honor the gods because they “prophesy and foretell” everything that the Fates have established.12 Cyniscus counters that it is no use to know what is going to happen if one is unable to guard against these outcomes. He cites two very famous oracles—­Croesus’ son dying by the spear, and Laius being killed by his own son—­which in no way helped the individuals concerned (I. conf. 13). Cyniscus adds that oracles are often misleadingly ambiguous, with reference to the oracle Croesus received about crossing the Halys. Zeus answers that Apollo had good reasons to be angry with the king, because he had tested the god by cooking lamb and turtle together. After reminding Zeus that Apollo, as a god, ought not to have been angry, Cyniscus draws his own conclusions about prophecy: Besides, I suppose that it was fated for the Lydian to be deceived, and that, generally, Destiny has spun out for us not to know clearly what is about to happen. Even that prophecy of you all in fact belongs to her.13 And with that, Cyniscus has destroyed Zeus’ last standing argument for the notion that the gods deserve to receive worship from humans. The humorously prickly exchange between Cyniscus and Zeus contains a methodical argument about ambiguous oracles. Cyniscus first implies that the gods do not know what the future holds, and that this is why they give vague prophecies. Zeus counters that Apollo wanted to punish Croesus and gave him an ambiguous oracle on purpose, knowing that it would cause him to plunge himself into disaster, but Cyniscus insists that both Croesus’ receiving the oracle and his interpretation of it were predetermined by Destiny. This three-­step progression reveals a close affinity between Lucian’s Zeus Refuted and a work by the Cynic philosopher Oenomaus of Gadara, as was noted already in the nineteenth century.14 Oenomaus’ work Exposure of the Charlatans (Goētōn fōra) survives only in fragments, primarily preserved by Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica. 12. I. conf. 12: ἡμεῖς δὲ εἰ καὶ μηδενὸς ἄλλου ἕνεκα, τοῦ γε μαντεύεσθαι καὶ προμηνύειν ἕκαστα τῶν ὑπὸ τῆς Μοίρας κεκυρωμένων δικαίως τιμῴμεθ᾿ ἄν. 13. I. conf. 14: πλὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ἐξαπατηθῆναι τῷ Λυδῷ ἐπέπρωτο, οἶμαι, καὶ ὅλως τὸ μὴ σαφῶς ἀκοῦσαι τὰ μέλλοντα ἡ Εἱμαρμένη ἐπέκλωσεν· ὥστε καὶ ἡ μαντικὴ ὑμῶν ἐκείνης μέρος ἐστίν. 14. Bruns 1889, 382–­89; cf. Jones 1986, 44; Hammerstaedt 1988, 157–­68; 1990, 2860–­62; Bendlin 2011 [2006], 231–­32; Bosman 2012, 791–­95.

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Oenomaus’ text reads as a conversation between an unnamed first-­person critic and the god Apollo, who is addressed in the second person throughout. In his discussion of the oracle that Apollo gave to Croesus, Oenomaus follows the same three-step reasoning as Lucian. If Apollo did not know that Croesus would misunderstand the oracle “the skill of the seer is unseeing,” if he acted not out of ignorance but was playing with Croesus out of malice, “the games of the gods are frightful,” and, finally, if all of it happened out of necessity, “why,” asks Oenomaus, “are you, wretched one, sitting in Delphi singing empty and useless words?”15 Given this close correspondence it seems likely that Lucian either read Oenomaus’ text, which was written in the first half of the second century CE, or that both men were familiar with a third text that dissected the oracle to Croesus in this specific way. The approach to the oracle of Lucian and Oenomaus is informed by the philosophical problems involved especially in imperial Stoicism: if Fate predetermines everything, what is the use of oracles? The Croesus oracles regarding his son and the destruction of his empire were made famous by Herodotus’ account of them. In their original context they are interpreted as roughly falling into what we might call, scenario two: both the death of Croesus’ son and his defeat at the hands of Cyrus are acknowledged as fated and unavoidable; Apollo was involved in how these events came about, and the two oracles were intentionally unhelpful and deceptive. Instead of preempting or remedying it, the oracles added to Croesus’ suffering, which in turn served to bear out Solon’s message that the gods can send ruin at any moment. It is precisely this scenario that prompts Oenomaus’ exclamation “the games of the gods are frightful.” The assumption that divine communications are beneficial assistance sent by benevolent gods is post-­Herodotean, expressed fully for the first time by Xenophon’s Socrates.16 Subsequently, prophecy came to serve as proof of philanthropic divine providence in middle Platonism and Stoicism, and Lucian and Oenomaus grapple with this legacy.17 In Lucian’s Zeus Refuted the conversation next turns to free will and human culpability for crimes. Cyniscus argues that Zeus ought not to reward or punish anyone in the afterlife—­this being the only power Zeus still claims for the 15. Oen. F 5.4–­5: ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἄμαντιν μαντικήν, εἴπερ οὐκ ἤιδει μὴ οὐ συνήσοντα τοῦ αἰνίγματος ὁ μάντις. εἰ δ᾽ οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἀγνοίας, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ τρυφῆς καὶ πονηρίας ἔπαιζεν, βαβαὶ οἷα τὰ θεῖα παιγνία ἐστιν. εἰ δὲ οὐδὲ τοῦτο, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι ἐχρῆν οὕτως γενέσθαι . . . τί δὲ ὅλως . . . σὺ ὁ δύστηνος ἐν Δελφοῖς καθέζῃ τὰ κενὰ καὶ μάταια ἀΐδων; Text of Oenomaus is from Hammerstaedt 1988. 16. Ellis 2016. See Barker (2006) for a political reading of the Croesus logos, and Kindt (2006) for its importance for Herodotus’ historiographical method; Eidinow (2019) connects it to epigraphic evidence for repeated oracular consultations. 17. For Stoicism see, e.g., Cic., ND 2.7–­12; Div. 2.39–­41; for oracles in middle Platonism Plutarch is an abundant source, see Bendlin 2011 [2006], 188–­89, 195–­208; Schröder 2010; Brouillette 2014; Simonetti 2017.

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gods—­because “men do nothing willingly, having instead been commanded by some unavoidable necessity, if indeed the things we agreed on before are true, that Fate is the cause of all things.”18 Zeus has no rebuttal to this, and, as we saw in the last chapter, the dialogue ends in unresolved aporia. If we continue to read the piece alongside Oenomaus, and also look at Maximus of Tyre, it becomes clear that the topic of free will was intimately connected to the debate over prophecy; on the basis of this context, Lucian’s mention of these three specific oracles—­Croesus’ son’s death, Laius’ demise, and the fall of Croesus’ empire—­renders it all but unavoidable that Cyniscus would pursue the argument concerning prophecy and free will next.19 Maximus of Tyre, a contemporary of Lucian, mounts a defense of the reconcilability of divine prophecy and human free will, in keeping with his adherence to middle Platonism.20 In his thirteenth oration Maximus argues that divine prophecy can even predict events brought about through human will. Both the Laius oracle and the oracle about Croesus’ empire take the form of conditionals: if Laius has a child it will kill him and if Croesus crosses the Halys he will destroy a great empire. Maximus writes that Laius provided the “initial impetus,” but that the god discerned the “true cause,” namely, he knew that Laius would fulfill the oracle because he knew his character.21 Here Maximus comes close to taking a Stoic position, in which Laius’ choice and his death were already predetermined. But about Croesus he says that the god merely announced what would happen if he crossed the Halys; this could have been avoided if Croesus had been intelligent enough to understand the oracle.22 Divine prophecy works only in conjunction with human intellect, explains Maximus, just as outcomes are determined collectively by Fate, divine agency, and human (lack of) virtue. Humans are wrong to hold Fate and other divine entities responsible for their evil deeds, as Agamemnon did. For Maximus the divine cannot produce evil on account of its goodness: evil comes about through human free will and wickedness (Or. 13.8–­9). Oenomaus and Lucian, it is safe to say, did not buy this. Lucian’s Cyniscus forces Zeus to admit to the imperial Stoic position that everything is predetermined by Fate—­both the oracles themselves, human responses to them, and the ultimate outcome—­and then pushes this position to its extreme consequence 18. I. conf. 18: ὅτι οὐδὲν ἑκόντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι ποιοῦμεν, ἀλλά τινι ἀφύκτῳ ἀνάγκῃ κεκελευσμένοι, εἴ γε ἀληθῆ ἐκεῖνά ἐστι τὰ ἔμπροσθεν ὡμολογημένα, ὡς ἡ Μοῖρα πάντων αἰτία. 19. Just like the Croesus oracle, the Laius oracle was a classic of philosophical critiques of oracles, Bendlin 2011 [2006], 188n22. On fate, free will, and culpability see also D. mort. 24. For the Croesus oracle see also Diog. Oen. NF 143 with Hammerstaedt 2021. 20. On free will and providence in middle Platonism see Boys-­Stones 2007; Vimercati 2020. 21. Max. Tyr. 13.5: τὴν ἀρχήν . . . τὴν αἰτίαν. Text from Trapp 1994. 22. Cf. Max. Tyr. 5.2, where Croesus is mocked for interpreting the oracle wishfully.

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in order to undermine it. Stoics did not want to get rid of free will or human responsibility, yet they needed to maintain the utility of prophecy, precisely because for them it proves the existence of providence.23 To Lucian such efforts are as ridiculous as the middle Platonist position where the gods know only what might happen, not what actually will happen. Cyniscus calls the oracle that Laius received “laughable,” since “a warning against things that will happen in any case is superfluous.”24 Oenomaus makes the same point at greater length, using vocabulary that prefigures both Lucian and Maximus. How can Apollo, when the “impetus” that was “the cause” of what came after escapes him, still know what comes after?25 He who made the prophecy to Laius was clearly “shameless,” because the mixed idea whereby one element (Laius’ decision to have a child) is subject to human free will, while another (Oedipus’ decision to kill) is “an unavoidable necessity” is “the most laughable thing.”26 If it is subject to human volition whether or not Laius has a child, argues Oenomaus, the same applies to whether or not Oedipus kills him (F 16.25). For Oenomaus and Lucian sophisticated attempts to defend the coexistence of free will and divine prophecy by pointing to “if, then” oracles amount to having your cake and eating it too. The affinity of the treatment of prophecy in Zeus Refuted to the philosophical discourse in Oenomaus and Maximus has been acknowledged, but, supposedly, Lucian “does not deepen the discussion” and merely gives “a summary account.”27 This evaluation, however, misses the point of Lucian’s approach: making Zeus complicit in the dismantling of Stoic and Platonist interpretations of divine prophecy draws attention to the difficulty of combining abstract and anthropomorphic forms of the divine. Zeus, as interlocutor, has to yield to Fate and Destiny. They pull the strings behind the scene, while Zeus serves as their spokesperson—­this is true both for the narrative of the dialogue and the theology that Zeus espouses within it. Seeing Zeus strain himself to convince his human interlocutor of the value of prophecy is a highly comical inversion. Typically humans are invested in enticing the gods to share their plans for us, but here, conversely, Zeus tries to entice humans to seek information from the gods. Lucian delineates sharply what is at stake in 23. For the developments and internal disagreements within Stoicism on the tensions between providence, determinism, free will, and responsibility see Bobzien 1998; Sellars 2007; Brouwer 2020. 24. I. conf. 13: γελοῖον . . . περιττὴ γάρ, οἶμαι, ἡ παραίνεσις πρὸς τὰ πάντως οὕτω γενησόμενα. Compare also Dem. 37, where Demonax mocks a mantis for either demanding too little money, if he can really change what has been fated, or being useless, if everything turns out as the gods have decided anyway. 25. Oen. F 16.21: ἡ ἀρχή . . . αἰτία. 26. Oen. F 16.22–­24: ἀναίσχυντος . . . ἀνάγκην ἄφυκτον . . . καταγελαστότατον. 27. Größlein 1998, 61–­69, quotation at 67.

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the second-­century CE debate on prophecy, and he contributes to it by casting Zeus in the role of philosopher. This imaginative comic scenario, in which not even Zeus himself can explain providence, underlines the temerity of philosophical theology. Lucian treats Apollo’s oracles again at some length in Dialogues of the Gods and Tragic Zeus, using several divine characters as detractors. In these pieces he considers in addition to the premises of prophecy also the practical aspects of oracular consultations. In Dialogues of the Gods Hera destroys Apollo verbally, because she is having an argument with Leto about whose children are better. While her harshness stems from this particular context, she draws on established motifs of oracle criticism, and calls the practice “sorcery.”28 She makes fun of Apollo for pretending to know many different skills, and rehearses the old chestnut about his failure to foresee the tragic deaths of either Hyacinthus or Daphne.29 Hera’s main objective is to paint Apollo’s oracular shrines at Delphi, Claros, Colophon, and Didyma as a crooked and opportunistic cottage industry: the god has set up many “work-­shops” where he “tricks” petitioners by giving them answers that “equivocate between two sides of the question so as not to risk a mistake,” and “from all this he gets rich.”30 Apollo’s ambiguous answers do not merely stem from ignorance, as Hera tells it, they are actually instrumental to his lucrative enterprise. The troublesome “obscurity” of oracles is the focal point of the critique in Tragic Zeus. Hermes mocks Apollo’s oracles for being unclear, and adds that they incur laughter for their poor poetic meter.31 Momus, whose problematic role I discussed in the previous chapter, says that it is understandable humans think nothing of the gods, because they give useless, incomplete oracles like the one Croesus received about crossing the Halys (I. trag. 20). Apollo, meanwhile, argues that the Stoic Timocles is laughed at merely because he speaks so unclearly that he is being misunderstood (I. trag. 27). The audience would have caught on to the irony of this claim, as does Momus (I. trag. 28), who chal28. D. Deor. 18.1: καταγοητεύεσθαι. 29. An earlier iteration of this motif is Ov., Met. 1.491; a second-­century CE parallel is Tatianus, Ad Gr. 8.4–­5. 30. D. Deor. 18.1: καταστησάμενος ἐργαστήρια τῆς μαντικῆς . . . ἐξαπατᾷ τοὺς χρωμένους . . . ἐπαμφοτερίζοντα πρὸς ἑκάτερον τῆς ἐρωτήσεως ἀποκρινόμενος, πρὸς τὸ ἀκίνδυνον εἶναι τὸ σφάλμα. καὶ πλουτεῖ μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ τοιούτου. I follow Nesselrath’s (2019) text here. Apollo’s oracular sites at Claros, Colophon, and Didyma were not as old or venerated as the Delphic oracle, but they were important religious centers at least from the Hellenistic period onward. Because of their connection to Apollo we can understand them as “normative” divination, cf. Bendlin 2011 [2006], 211–­28, who calls them “official oracles” at 228. 31. I. trag. 6: ἀσάφεια. In Plutarch’s dialogue on why oracles at Delphi are no longer given in verse (De Pyth. or. 394D–­409D), they are said to have had bad meter in the past, De Pyth. or. 396C–­ D, 397D, cf. Coenen 1977, 51.

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lenges Apollo to predict the outcome of the debate between the philosophers. Apollo says that he cannot make a prophecy without his accoutrements (water, incense, and tripod), but Momus pressures him with another allusion to the Croesus oracles: this will be far easier than a lamb and a turtle being cooked in Lydia.32 Apollo’s oracle consists of hobbling hexameters, alludes to the answers Croesus received, and is completely nonsensical.33 Momus’ reaction is to laugh and call Apollo “a sorcerer,” and those trusting him asses and mules.34 The philosophers Damis and Timocles, finally, also take on the topic of prophecy. The Stoic Timocles dutifully argues that “oracles and predictions of the future” have to be the work of the gods and their providence.35 Damis immediately brings up Croesus’ “thoroughly double-­edged and two-­faced” crossing the Halys oracle, and calls Croesus “wretched” for having spent so many talents on the verse.36 Momus interrupts from on high, and tries to send Apollo down to go and defend himself. Zeus, however, prevents this, and the philosophers leave the topic of prophecy behind. Lucian, Oenomaus, and Maximus carry on a conversation about Apollo’s prophecy in which Croesus’ interactions with the Delphic oracle function as a shared language. Croesus was, arguably, the most famous challenger of Apollo in Greek memory. His complicated and tragic story served as a natural starting point for second-­century CE inquiries concerning Apollo’s craft. Momus’ calling Apollo “a sorcerer” (goēs)—­and Hera implying as much—­is remarkable, because this term in Greek literature is “strongly marked with non-­normative activity” within ritual practices,37 that is to say, it is a highly derogatory designation for a god. Oenomaus, too, uses it of Apollo, addressing his imagined interlocutor as goēs, and it is repeated in the title of his work given by Eusebius, 32. Cf. Hdt. 1.47. Coenen (1977, 94) argues that Momus presents his test of Apollo as harder because it is a prediction about the future, while Croesus’ test of Apollo was about the present. But Momus means the opposite: Croesus’ test was completely open-­ended, while now Apollo knows “what the inquiry is about” (περὶ ὅτου ἡ σκέψις, I. trag. 30). 33. I. trag. 31: “Victory will be for the mules, and the donkey will head-­butt its swift offspring” (νίκη δ᾿ ἡμιόνων, ὁ δ᾿ ὄνος θοὰ τέκνα κορύψει). Cf. Hdt. 1.55. 34. I. trag. 31: γόης. Momus points back to the oracle that Apollo just gave, and to Croesus, see n33. Whitmarsh (2013, 182) puts a lot of stress on “trusting him” (τοὺς πιστεύοντας αὐτῷ) here, suggesting that it might also imply that one should not “believe in” Apollo’s existence. I am reluctant to accept this reading, since the notion of “not believing in the gods” is expressed in I. trag. 18 with the more specific “that the gods do not exist” (μηδὲ ὅλως θεοὺς εἶναι; cf. Deor. Conc. 19). Morgan (2015) discusses pistis as (religious) propositional belief in Lucian at length, but unfortunately not this passage. The closest parallel for our phrase here is Alex. 38, which Morgan interprets as encompassing both trust and belief in the snake god Glycon, ibid., 144–­45; on belief-­terminology in Lucian see also the Introduction; on religious disbelief in Lucian see Kuin 2020b. 35. I. trag. 43: τοὺς χρησμοὺς καὶ προαγορεύσεις τῶν ἐσομένων. 36. I. trag. 43: ἀκριβῶς ἀμφήκης ἦν καὶ διπρόσωπος . . . ὄλεθρος. 37. Edmonds 2019, 13.

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as we saw above.38 The use by Lucian’s Momus and Oenomaus of nonnormative language for the seemingly rather normative god of prophecy, Apollo, does not undermine the framework cited at the beginning of this chapter. Rather, it illustrates how a known categorization can be used as a tool to denigrate oracular practice in its most normative form, thereby putting down prophecy as such. But how do Lucian’s characters, then, treat oracular sites less normative than Apollo’s? In Assembly of the Gods, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Lucian’s Momus launches a campaign to evict divinities from Olympus whom he considers to be unworthy. While listing, at Zeus’ request, candidates for expulsion, he also turns his attention to oracular sites: Trophonius, Zeus, and what sticks in my throat most of all, Amphilochus, who, while he is the son of an outcast and matricide, gives prophecies in Cilicia like he is some great guy, telling lies for the most part and playing the sorcerer for two obols. That is why you, Apollo, are no longer regarded, since now every stone and every altar gives oracles if it is drenched in oil, has a wreath, and can obtain some man as a sorcerer, of whom there are plenty.39 Trophonius and Amphilochus both received hero-­cult in Lucian’s time, and their shrines were popular oracular sites, as attested by Pausanias and Philostratus.40 Momus calls these prophesying heroes “sorcerers,” and marks their shrines as sites of aesthetic excess—­“drenched in oil”—­and of moneymaking. Momus juxtaposes the oracles of Trophonius and Amphilochus with Apollonian prophecy, presenting the former as usurpers of Apollo’s domain. Just as in Tragic Zeus, Momus uses language that signals nonnormativity, but now for the opposite purpose of elevating Apollo as oracular god. This illustrates both the degree to which Lucianic characters are shapeshifters whose views are determined by their immediate narrative context, and the power of normativity markers to categorize and evaluate religious practices ad hoc. 38. Oen. F 16.11 Hammerstaedt; cf. Bendlin 2011 [2006], 231. I return to the question of the full scope of the term goēs in section 2 below. 39. Deor. Conc. 12: τὸν Τροφώνιον, ὦ Ζεῦ, καὶ ὃ μάλιστά με ἀποπνίγει, τὸν Ἀμφίλοχον, ὃς ἐναγοῦς ἀνθρώπου καὶ μητρολῴου υἱὸς ὢν μαντεύεται ὁ γενναῖος ἐν Κιλικίᾳ, ψευδόμενος τὰ πολλὰ καὶ γοητεύων τοῖν δυοῖν ὀβολοῖν ἕνεκα. τοιγαροῦν οὐκέτι σύ, ὦ Ἄπολλον, εὐδοκιμεῖς, ἀλλὰ ἤδη πᾶς λίθος καὶ πᾶς βωμὸς χρησμῳδεῖ, ὃς ἂν ἐλαίῳ περιχυθῇ καὶ στεφάνους ἔχῃ καὶ γόητος ἀνδρὸς εὐπορήσῃ, οἷοι πολλοί εἰσιν. I follow Harmon (1936) here for μητρολῴου instead of Macleod’s μητραλῴου. 40. Paus. 9.39.5–­14; Philostr., VA 4.24; on Trophonius’ cult see Bonnechere 2003. For Amphilochus’ oracle see Paus. 1.34.3, where it is called “the most reliable oracle,” just as at Philops. 38 (it is tempting to think that Lucian is mocking Pausanias here). Amphilochus and Trophonius are also mocked at D. mort. 10, see further section 2 below.

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The question of whether “new” oracular sites crowded out “old” ones in the imperial period has been a topic for debate at least since Plutarch wrote his On the Decline of Oracles, and Lucian’s Momus taps into a well-­worn cliché here. The current scholarly consensus is that, while several oracles in Asia Minor did rise to prominence in the postclassical period, the oracle at Delphi itself also went through a renaissance from the time of Hadrian onward; it was certainly still viable in Lucian’s lifetime.41 Momus’ comment on Apollo’s supposed obsolescence, like the label “sorcerer” and his emphasis on commercialism and lavish decorations with respect to Trophonius and Amphilochus, is part of his strategy to rank and organize oracles, rendering Apollo’s “old” and normative, and the heroes’ shrines “new” and nonnormative. Such demarcation of nonnormativity through an aesthetics of excess is expressed most fully in Lucian’s account of the oracular shrine of the snake god Glycon in Abonuteichos, to which I now turn. The putative founder of Glycon’s oracle is the eponymous protagonist of Alexander or the False Prophet. Lucian locates Alexander’s oracle and mystery cult in Paphlagonia, off the Black Sea in modern-­day Turkey, and presents him as a contemporary. Regarding the historicity of the cult, three positions have been proposed: both the prophet Alexander and his cult are fictional; the prophet Alexander is fictional but the cult for the snake god Glycon is historical; both Alexander and his cult are historical.42 The third scenario seems the most plausible. Alexander has a close affinity with Lucian’s other holy man pseudobiography Peregrinus, whose protagonist has been proven to be historical through attestations in other authors. The material evidence for a Glycon cult is convincing, and such a cult needs a prophet or priest running it. Finally, Lucian’s satirical takedown would have been most effective if, just as in Peregrinus, it targeted a well-­known individual. Even if we accept both Alexander and his cult as historical, however, we cannot treat Alexander as a historically accurate account of it. The work poses as an eye-­witness report for an addressee named Celsus,43 but the narrator reveals that his name is “Lucian” only toward the end of the piece (Alex. 55), much as in True Histories.44 Given this similarity, and the fantastical nature of the latter, it makes no sense to assume a straight41. Bendlin 2011 [2006], 208–­16; Bowden 2013, 47–­49. 42. On the historicity of the cult see Robert 1980, 393–­421; Jones 1986, 133–­48; Kos 1991, 183–­92; Victor 1997, 1–­26; Chaniotis 2002; Dickie 2004, 159–­82; Rostad 2011, 207–­30; Bremmer 2017, 62–­69. 43. Alex. 1; identified with Origen’s adversary by Baldwin 1973, 29–­30; Hoffmann 1987, 30–­33; Clay 1992, 3440–­41; contra Caster 1938, 1–­5; Hall 1981, 512–­13n63; Branham 1984, 150n16; Jones 1986, 133; Bergjan 2001, 179–­87; Van Nuffelen 2011, 186n24. 44. VH 2.28; cf. Georgiadou and Larmour 1998a, 212–­13; Von Möllendorff 2000, 412–­25; Kim 2010, 172–­73; Ní Mheallaigh 2010, 130; 2014, 257–­58. On VH see also chapter 1.

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forward identification of the narrator “Lucian” of Alexander with the author.45 Lucian has inserted the narrator “Lucian” into the account as part of a game he plays with his audience about identity, reliability, and trust.46 The narrator calls Alexander “a sorcerer” (Alex. 1) in his first sentence, and says that he took his inspiration for founding his own oracle from Amphilochus’ successful shrine at Mallus.47 Alexander’s aim is to get rich, and the prophet succeeds to the tune of 70,000 to 80,000 drachmas a year.48 To announce his arrival Alexander buries prophetic bronze tablets which are duly discovered and taken to be genuine by the locals (Alex. 10).49 He arranges that two oracular texts affirming his divinity and healing powers surface right as he comes to Abonuteichos. Alexander’s first feat in town is to brilliantly stage the birth of the speaking snake god Glycon.50 Alexander’s oracle is a highly organized operation. Petitioners submit sealed questions that Alexander answers either in written form, penned on the outside of the sealed questions, or as autophones, that is, by ventriloquizing through his divine snake-­with-­puppet-­head Glycon. Autophones are given only to particularly generous petitioners (Alex. 26). In both cases Alexander and his assistants secretly unseal and reseal the questions overnight. For the written answers interpreters are at the ready who will read and decode responses for a hefty fee. The answers are so specific that petitioners consider them divinely inspired and true, regardless of their content (Alex. 19–­21). Alexander corrects oracles that are proven false by expunging them from his records and replacing them with an updated version (Alex. 27–­28).51 The narrator, like another Croesus, sends questions through intermediaries 45. Several scholars have made a clear distinction between narrator and author in the case of Alex., e.g., Branham 1984, 143–­63; 1989a, 181–­210; Clay 1992, 3440–­48; Pozzi 2003, 129–­50; Szlagor 2005, 199–­206; Elm von der Osten 2006, 144–­47; Van Nuffelen 2011, 186–­88. Others still equate the two, e.g., Anderson 1994c, 24–­25; Francis 1995, 69–­73; Victor 1997, 26–­37; Luck 1999, 142–­48; Nesselrath 2001, 161–­62; Dickie 2010, 352–­54; Berdozzo 2011, 284–­85; Rostad 2011, 213. 46. Cf. Goldhill 2002, 65. 47. Alex. 19, cf. Caster 1937, 36–­38; Jones 1986, 37. 48. Alex. 8, 23. The profits are probably exaggerated cf. Pozzi 2003, 144–­45; Jones (1986, 139–­ 40) interprets the text as meaning 70,000 or 80,000 oracles a year; on either reading the sanctuary would have had to process more than 150 questions a day. 49. Alexander’s tablets bring to mind the tablets of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, see Jones 1986, 136n15; Victor 1997, 137. See Ní Mheallaigh (2018, 229) for several ancient comparanda. 50. Alex. 13–­14: he hides a baby snake in a goose egg, buries it in mud, and then pretends to discover it. At Alex. 26–­27 Alexander presents Glycon as a grown snake body with humanlike head. He makes him speak by attaching cranes’ windpipes to the head, and having an assistant speak through them. The Christian author Hippolytus describes both tricks: Ref. 4.28–­29; cf. Caster 1938, 27, 46–­47; Jones 1986, 137; Victor 1997, 142; Ní Mheallaigh 2018, 225–­36. 51. Cf. Hdt. 7.6: the seer Onomacritus was caught adding a prediction of the disappearance of the islands off Lemnos into the sea to the oracles of Musaeus.

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to the oracle to test it. Presumably on account of arrogance and time pressure, questions are no longer being unsealed. So, when the narrator writes on the outside of his sealed note that it contains eight questions, while on the inside it only says, “When will Alexander be caught cheating?,” he receives eight distinct but equally nonsensical answers (Alex. 54). When “Lucian” finally goes to Abonuteichos in person, the prophet summons him immediately. Alexander stretches out his right hand to the visitor, who gives it a good bite instead of a kiss (Alex. 55). The prophet remains calm, restrains his outraged followers, and offers “Lucian” friendship, which he accepts. The narrator leaves Abonuteichos loaded with presents (Alex. 56), but, as it turns out, the crew of his ship has been paid by Alexander to kill him. Because of a repentant captain “Lucian” escapes to live another day (Alex. 56), to make an unsuccessful attempt at prosecuting Alexander (Alex. 57), and to write down his story for Celsus (Alex. 61). In the last few chapters of Alexander the first-­person narrator is suddenly transformed into a character in his own story, and a very ambiguous one at that. Throughout the piece he had fashioned himself and his addressee as followers of Epicurus, but his bite hardly fits with a disposition of Epicurean imperturbability (ataraxia). All in all “Lucian” emerges as an inconsistent, vengeful, and self-­aggrandizing sham philosopher—­an excellent foil for his adversary Alexander.52 Edmonds’ description of nonnormative divination as “a superlatively efficacious procedure that depends on specialized arcane knowledge” accounts neatly for Alexander’s supposed ability to answer sealed questions without opening them. “Lucian’s” narrative is replete with detailed descriptions of Alexander’s outlandishly luxurious appearance and he characterizes the cult as an excess of spectacular tricks and feats—­buried inscribed tablets and an oracular prophecy predicting his arrival, freakishly apt oracular responses and a ventriloquizing snake god—­much like the baroque story of Glaucias’ efforts to lure his beloved Chrysis from the beginning of this chapter. The narrator’s opportunistic readiness to accept friendship from Alexander, part of his ambivalent characterization, forms another connection with Lovers of Lies: members of the elite with philosophical aspirations are shown up as being just as sensitive to the lure of nonnormative practices as everyone else. In Alexander Roman consuls, governors, and even emperor Marcus Aurelius fall for Alexander’s antics alongside the allegedly unsophisticated Paphlagonians living in Abonuteichos.53 This feature has been analyzed as Lucian’s (the author) contribution, by negative contrast, to a formulation of “acceptable religious behavior for the 52. Cf. Branham 1984, 158–­63; Bendlin 2011 [2006], 236–­41; Elm von der Osten 2006, 155. 53. Stupidity of Abonuteichonians: Alex. 9; elite Romans: Alex. 27, 30–­37, 48, 54, 57, 60.

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elite pepaideumenos.”54 However, such a reading presupposes his investment in upholding certain standards of normativity, whereas he metes out fundamentally similar criticisms for oracular practices on opposite ends of the normativity spectrum, thereby targeting the standards as such. “Lucian” shares much with Apollo’s detractors Hera, Momus, and Cyniscus: as interlocutors in pieces of prose drama they all have their own agendas and preoccupations. The author Lucian draws on the second-­century CE discourse about oracles that was familiar to him, and feeds elements of it to his characters. Hera’s charge of greed against Apollo reverberates loudly in the details “Lucian” provides about how Alexander operates his for-­profit-­shrine. The opportunistic ambiguity Hera traces in Apollo’s responses is extrapolated into Alexander’s efforts to retroactively bend his oracles to fit known outcomes. Lucian’s depiction of Glycon’s oracle differs from his treatment of Apollonian prophecy only in its emphasis on the aesthetics of excess; the fundamental accusation that oracular shrines commodify the (false) promise of access to the unknowable is applied equally to both.55 To conclude my discussion of oracular consultation I turn to how seers feature in the jokes collected in the Philogelos-­collection, which people were likely already telling each other in or close to Lucian’s lifetime.56 Lucian subverts his contemporaries’ efforts to map the normativity of religion onto distinctions between the elites and the rest of the population by showing elites engaged in nonnormative practices. In Philogelos we encounter the same principle, but from the opposite direction: nonnormative practitioners can be unmasked and criticized not just in philosophical or literary works, but also in the popular oral medium of the standard joke. In Philogelos seers and astrologers are targeted for profit-­seeking, ignorance, ambiguity, and opportunism—­the familiar motifs. These jokes occur in the categories “the boorish man” (dyskolos) and the “the unskilled man” (afyēs), and among the latter group prophecy is the most featured profession, beating out teachers and (apprentice) barbers.57 Just as in Lucian, petitioners are made fun of alongside the mantic professionals; the roguish ways in which incapable seers try to save their skin are both humorous and charming. In one example a petitioner asks “an unskilled seer” (afyēs mantis) about the well-­being of the members of his household, as he is on the way home after a trip. The seer answers, “Everyone is well, including your father,” 54. Petsalis-­Diomidis 2010, 55–­64, quote at 64. 55. Cf. Elm von der Osten (2006, 150–­51), who reads the narrative of Alex. as embodying Oenomaus’ insinuation that, ultimately, oracles supposed to come from Apollo are also manmade. 56. On the dating of Philog. see chapter 3. 57. Philog. 187 features a “boorish” astrologer and plays on greed and ignorance; Philog. 201–­5 feature unskilled seers and astrologers.

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but the petitioner says that his father has been dead for ten years already. The seer shoots back: “That is because you do not know your real father.”58 Like Alexander, this seer boldly tries to correct his obvious mistake. With his answer he suddenly turns the tables, as in all punchline-­driven jokes, by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the petitioner’s birth, and thereby deflecting attention away from his own lack of skill. The overrepresentation of seers and astrologers in the joke category “unskilled man” shows that the bad seer was a common enough stereotype to become the stuff of standard jokes. By specifically targeting after the fact corrections of oracles (Philog. 201, 203–­4), the kind of “if, then” prophecy discussed above in this section (Philog. 202),59 and the intentionally ambiguous, unfalsifiable language of oracular answers (Philog. 205), the “unskilled seer” jokes of Philogelos confirm that the problematic features of oracular practice debated in Lucian, Oenomaus, and Maximus were well-­known in all strata of society. This gives the lie to the notion that in the second century CE educated elites kept themselves aloof from oracular practices, especially of the nonnormative type, while the masses naïvely entrusted themselves to all kinds of sorcerers and oracle-­mongers. Oracular practices were relied on by people of all stripes in Lucian’s time—­painstaking philosophical defenses of prophecy attest to this as much as epigraphic evidence of oracular consultations—­but objections to them were equally widespread.60 What is, ultimately, the message of Lucian’s representation of oracular communication, and how does this relate to his critique of divine philanthropy (as laid out in chapter 5)? In previous scholarship it has been argued that Lucian, as compared to his overall attitude toward religion, was especially averse to oracular practices, with Alexander’s shrine attracting his fiercest ire.61 Recently, however, the playfulness of Alexander and its ambiguous characterization of “Lucian” has led scholars to interpret the work as ultimately aporetic on the value of divination.62 Bendlin extends this evaluation beyond this particular text to Lucian’s overall view of prophecy, concluding: “Fate, providence, and 58. Philog. 201: ὑγιαίνουσι πάντες, καὶ ὁ πατήρ σου. τοῦ δὲ εἰπόντος ὅτι ὁ πατήρ μου δέκατον ἔτος ἔχει ἀφ᾽ οὗ ἀπέθανεν, ἀπεκρίνατο· οὐδὲν γὰρ οἶδας τὸν κατὰ ἀλήθειάν σου πατέρα. Text from Dawe 2000. 59. As noted by Winkler (1985, 162), this joke is strongly reminiscent of Alex. 33. 60. See also the Aesopic fable Perry 56 on a “woman mage” (gynē magos) being mocked by a bystander on her way to be executed (cf. Ogden 2002, 106), and the public denouement in the street of the “Chaldaean” Diophanes amid a laughing crowd in Apul., Met. 2.12–­14. On seers in Met. and on Chaldaeans see further section 2 below. 61. Caster 1937, 225–­67; Jones 1986, 43–­45; Karavas 2008–­2009; Spickermann 2013a. 62. Elm von der Osten 2006; Van Nuffelen 2011, 185–­89.

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divination: the discussion simply goes on and on and on.”63 This chapter is indebted to Bendlin’s study, but I conclude differently: Lucian does have something to say about oracles, and we can trace these commitments through such characters as Hera, Cyniscus, the two Momuses, and “Lucian.” Advocating for the value of oracular practice requires that the gods know something about the future that we do not, that for our benefit they would be wanting to share this information with us in ways that we can comprehend, and that we, in turn, can use knowledge about the future to our advantage. Such assumptions are too demanding in the context of the Lucianic kosmos: the unpredictability and injustice of the human condition suggest that if there are gods they do not have a steady hand, and our shortcomings as humans make it unlikely that we would know what to do with such information if we got it. The human desire to know the future is as understandable as it is misguided. “Sorcerers” exploiting this desire for gain deserve to be ridiculed, as do philosophers who either somehow fit prophecy into their sophisticated understanding of the divine, or, like “Lucian,” think they are far above it all when in fact they are not.64 As for everyone else, they can perhaps be excused for asking the gods for answers, but should not expect so much in return.

Philosophy vs. Magic vs. Religion Jonathan Z. Smith has argued, on the basis of the law of the excluded middle, that since magic has often been defined in opposition both to religion and to science, the logical consequence would be that we ought to admit that religion and science have “a close affinity” to one another.65 Edmonds, taking his cue from Smith, suggests that this affinity exists in “normativity” as a “shared characteristic,” since both science and religion “are held up as models of the normal ways to relate to the divine and to the material world.”66 As we have seen, he defines ancient ritualized practices on a scale of normativity in between the two poles of normative religion and the nonnormative, which is considered magic, concluding that “magic is not a thing, but a way of talking about things.”67 In dealing with the second-­century CE context the modern conceptual trio of reli63. Bendlin 2011 [2006], 241. 64. At Alex. 36 and 60 “Lucian” is tempted to attribute events to the reverse efficacy of an apotropaic inscription and to providence, respectively, cf. Branham 1984, 160–­61; 1989a, 208; Van Nuffelen 2011, 187–­88. 65. Smith 2004 [1995], 215. 66. Edmonds 2019, 9. 67. Edmonds 2019, 7.

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gion, science, and magic may usefully be replaced with religion, philosophy, and magic. All three areas were at this time typically engaged with the divine: religion and philosophy were evaluated as doing so within the parameters of normativity, and magic in defiance of such boundaries. But both philosophy and religion could easily be mistaken for magic, precisely because of the relational, context-­dependent nature of normativity, and because of the shared interests of all three pursuits.68 Lucian’s comic treatment of philosophers who cannot withstand the lure of sorcery, exploits comic tensions already embedded in these categorizations. A figure that emerges and reemerges in the places where these three fields overlap is the goēs, a Greek term which in this chapter is consistently translated as “sorcerer.” Walter Burkert has traced what he calls the “Bedeutungsgeschichte” of this word. Starting out as a designation for the Dactyls, ecstatic followers of Cybele who were thought to have invented welding, it quickly becomes connected to mystery rites and music, while Herodotus uses it to describe shapeshifters who become wolves for a few days.69 In Plato it is a frequent, negative marker for liars and imitators, but more fundamentally describes those who can take hold of the souls of others. Yet, in a striking moment in the Meno Socrates himself becomes a goēs: Meno warns him that if he were to pursue his aporia-­inducing philosophical questioning in another city, he would easily be mistaken for a sorcerer.70 The goēs is an Einzelgänger operating on the fringes of the polis, and relying heavily on his personality. Burkert closes by suggesting that perhaps the sophist is the true heir of the beguiling goēs, pointing to Gorgias’ reportedly describing Empedocles as his teacher and a sorcerer.71 Lucian’s goēs incorporates the development sketched by Burkert: he can be a philosopher, sophist, seer, and sorcerer all at once, shifting between guises at will, and thereby showing comic disregard for the types of distinctions Lucian’s contemporaries sought to uphold. Lucian’s contemporary Apuleius, whom we know as both a philosopher and a novelist, defends himself against charges of magia in his Apology. The background of the case, as reported by Apuleius in the piece, is that the heirs of his rich wife’s deceased husband have taken him to court over “a charge of magic” (crimen magiae). The Latin word “magia,” derived in turn from Greek mageia, is the ancestor of English “magic.” As Edmonds has pointed out, it is 68. On the construction of the magic, philosophy, religion triad see Anderson 1994c, 1–­15; Wendt 2016, 114–­45. On the fluidity between philosophy and religion among early Christian intellectuals see Eshleman 2012. 69. Hdt. 4.105; Burkert 1962, 39–­41; cf. Graf 2019, 125–­28. 70. Pl., Men. 80A–­B; cf. Burkert 1962, 42, 53. 71. D.L. 8.59; cf. Burkert 1962, 48, 55. On the term goēs see now also Graf 2019, 125–­28.

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almost always a term of “othering”: a word used not about one’s own practices but those of others, in order to discredit them as being nonnormative.72 In the absence of outside evidence we do not and cannot know for sure if the court case that Apuleius wrote his Apology for actually took place. Nonetheless, his text shows us what, in his view, a philosopher like him could say to defend himself against a crimen magiae.73 Apuleius ridicules each of the grounds for the charge of magia. He sent a recipe for toothpaste to his friend, which the accusers consider a potion. Apuleius turns it into nothing but a kind favor that he, as a learned man with medical knowledge, did for his friend (Apol. 6–­8). Another element of the charge is the fact that Apuleius has a mirror, a device used by sorcerers to draw down the moon and in other practices. Apuleius belittles the charge by comically dwelling on the importance of having a good appearance which requires having a mirror, but he also reframes the mirror as a philosophical device to check one’s moral progress and to study geometry and celestial phenomena (Apol. 13–­16). The permeability of the categories religion, philosophy, and magic is most obvious in Apuleius’ appeal to Plato in defense of the label of “sorcerer” (magus): If, as I read among many authors, “sorcerer” in the Persian language is our word “priest,” what then is the crime in being a priest and duly understanding, knowing, and being experienced in the regulations of the ceremonies, the rule of the rites, and the law of cults?74 He goes on to cite Plato’s Alcibiades, where Socrates appears to praise the Persian royals for teaching their children mageia (Alc. 1.121E–­122A). The well-­ educated know that words such as magus/magos and magia/mageia can actually refer to normative religious practice, and this, of course, is how Apuleius interprets these terms in order to appropriate them for himself.75 Throughout his Apology Apuleius appeals to the learnedness and philosoph72. Edmonds 2019, 13, 378–­80. On the early history of the terms magos and mageia see Bremmer 2008 [1999], 235–­48, 347–­52; cf. Graf 2019, 116–­23. On Latin superstitio as a normative term see Gordon 2008. 73. On these issues see Hunink 1997b, 11–­20; Costantini 2019b, 1–­19. Apul., Met. is replete with nonnormative religious practices, from the many featured female sorceresses (e.g., Met. 1.7–­ 20, 2.6–­32, 3.12–­29, 9.29–­31) to Lucius’ initiation into the Isaic cult in Met. 11; on its relation to Apol. see Costantini 2019b, 37, 39n169, 41, 257; on Lucian and Met. see also chapter 4. 74. Apul., Apol. 25: nam si, quod ego apud plurimos lego, Persarum lingua magus est qui nostra sacerdos, quod tandem est crimen, sacerdotem esse et rite nosse atque scire atque callere leges cerimoniarum, fas sacrarium, ius religionum. Text from Hunink 1997a. Cf. Hunink 1997b, 88–­89; Edmonds 2019, 397–­98; Costantini 2019b, 60–­70. 75. Cf. D. Chr. 36.41, where the Persian, Zoroastrian magos is legitimized by distinguishing him from the goēs, with Costantini 2019a, 114.

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ical expertise of the governor, who is presiding over the trial, while he consistently puts down his accusers as ignoramuses. Because they do not understand what philosophy and (true) religion look like, they have fallen into the mistake of considering Apuleius an ordinary sorcerer.76 His defense amounts to a masterful and witty mapping of the territory of normativity: what Apuleius and the governor know and do maps onto philosophy and proper religion, everything else is nonnormative territory. Apuleius’ rhetoric portrays his accusers as uneducated idiots with low social status, and renders them suspicious: the cause of their misinterpreting Apuleius’ philosophical and religious practices as magia must be their own familiarity with such illegitimate activities. Apuleius was, assuming the court case happened, far from the only philosopher at this time to encounter a crimen magiae. In Lucian’s bitter depiction of life as a hired philosopher in a wealthy Roman household, On Hirelings in Great Houses, the first-­person speaker says that whoever takes up such a role, especially if they are Greek, risks being suspected of being “a poisoner” (pharmakeus). The reason is, he argues, that many Greeks who hired themselves out as philosophers without actually knowing much philosophy “promised prophecies, potions, love-­charms, and incantations against enemies” instead,77 giving real philosophers a bad name. As strenuously as both Apuleius and Lucian’s speaker protect the distinction between philosophy and sorcery, so permeable it was in reality. The same was the case with sophists, several of whom were charged with magia in the imperial period.78 Lucian, as we already saw at the start of this chapter, tirelessly makes fun of philosophers who fall prey, not to practicing, but to purchasing magical services, like Cleodemus and Glaucias in Lovers of Lies. Their own interest in policing the boundaries of normativity opens philosophers who partake of sorcery up to the charge of hypocrisy, and Lucian takes advantage of this, again through his recurring character Menippus. Lucian’s Menippus, inspired by the Hellenistic Cynic philosopher Menippus of Gadara, meets the heroes Trophonius and Amphilochus in the underworld 76. Cf. Edmonds 2019, 391–­95. 77. Merc. cond. 40: μαντείας καὶ φαρμακείας ὑπέσχοντο καὶ χάριτας ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐρωτικοῖς καὶ ἐπαγωγὰς τοῖς ἐχθροῖς, cf. Hafner 2017b, 344–­45. This moment is prefigured by Merc. cond. 27, where the first-­person speaker says that the addressee, a private philosophy teacher, would gladly “play the part of a magician or seer” (μάγον ἢ μάντιν ὑποκρίνασθαι) to gain more advantage, but that he is not good enough as an actor to pull this off. Similarly, at Juv. 3.76–­77 magus is listed among painter and orator in the list of jobs a Greek will fulfill in a household, cf. Courtney 1980, 627; Dickie 2001, 194–­95. 78. Favorinus was another victim of such a charge, being called incantator astutissumus, Polem., Physiognom. 1.162 Foerster, cf. Bowersock 1969, 89–­90; Gleason 1995, 7–­8; Dickie 2001, 238. Dionysius of Miletus was similarly accused, Philostr., VS 523. Other famously ambiguous figures are Apollonius of Tyana (see Kemezis 2015, 150–­95) and Peregrinus (on the latter see in this section below), cf. Anderson 1994c, 5–­6; Harrison 2000, 86–­88; Cribiore 2013, 123.

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in one of the Dialogues of the Dead. As mentioned in section 1 above, both heroes received worship, and their shrines were popular oracles in the second century CE. Menippus makes fun of them for actually being dead, and for the cult they receive. Trophonius responds that if Menippus had visited Lebadeia he would “not be distrusting those things,” meaning the oracle.79 Menippus denies this indignantly: What are you saying? That unless I go to Lebadeia decked out in linens with a pancake in my hands, looking ridiculous, and crawl into your cave through that low passage, I will not be able to know that you are dead just as I am, differing only on account of your sorcery?80 Menippus emphasizes through strongly visualizing language the excess of the procedures—­special clothing, special offerings, underground setting—­ involved in the oracular consultation at Lebadeia, confidently branding all of it “sorcery.” For a Cynic philosopher to dismiss oracular prophecy is fitting, even more so because the sites of Trophonius and Amphilochus were located toward the nonnormative end of the spectrum, and could easily be construed as exotic forms of divination. Within Dialogues of the Dead Menippus frequently returns to the theme that death comes for everyone, in this case even for heroes who claim prophetic faculties. There is also an intratextual joke within the corpus at work: Lucian provides an answer to the question of what it will look like if Menippus goes to Lebadeia in another piece. The dialogue Menippus is structurally a counterpart to the Icaromenippus: in both pieces the character Menippus becomes disillusioned with the limits and internal contradictions of the knowledge of the philosophers, and decides to take things into his own hands. In Icaromenippus, as we have seen in chapters 3 and 5, Menippus goes up to the heavens to talk to the gods; in Menippus he reverses his journey and goes to the underworld to talk, like another Odysseus, to the seer Teiresias. But while in Icaromenippus the philosopher uses a device of his own making to achieve his journey, here he relies on the services of a professional. Exactly what kind of professional is intentionally and comically ambiguous: Menippus, who is relating his journey to an unnamed friend, says he decided to go to Babylon to find “a mage, one of the students and successors

79. D. mort. 10.1: οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἠπίστεις σὺ τούτοις. 80. D. mort. 10.2: τί φῄς; εἰ μὴ εἰς Λεβάδειαν γὰρ παρέλθω καὶ ἐσταλμένος ταῖς ὀθόναις γελοίως μᾶζαν ἐν ταῖν χεροῖν ἔχων εἰσερπύσω διὰ τοῦ στομίου ταπεινοῦ ὄντος ἐς τὸ σπήλαιον, οὐκ ἂν ἠδυνάμην εἰδέναι, ὅτι νεκρὸς εἶ ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς μόνῃ τῇ γοητείᾳ διαφέρων;

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of Zoroaster,”81 as a guide to the underworld. Once he gets to Babylon he finds “one of the Chaldaeans, a wise man of marvelous skill, grey hair and a very august beard,”82 and duly procures his services for a—­this is implied—­lofty fee (Nec. 7). The conflation between Zoroastrian magi and Chaldaean sorcerers is not a careless mistake: the audience is in fact meant to understand that the Chaldaean hired by Menippus dresses up as a Zoroastrian mage to convey Menippus to the underworld.83 This means that both Menippus, who wears a triple costume rendering him as Odysseus, Heracles, and Orpheus at the same time, and the Chaldaean Mithrobarzanes are playing a role during their expedition to Hades. Right after they meet, Mithrobarzanes places Menippus under a comically elaborate purification regime including twenty-­nine days of bathing in the Euphrates, long lectures, sleeping outside, incantations, a modest diet, spells, walking backward, and being spat in the face three times in a row each day (Nec. 7). Once the preliminary rites are complete, Menippus is given a cap, a lion-­skin, and a lyre, exemplifying the three famous visitors to the underworld, Odysseus, Heracles, and Orpheus, respectively. Mithrobarzanes himself “put on a magical cloak very much like the Median dress.”84 This getup points back to Menippus’ original intention of hiring a Persian, Zoroastrian mage. Mithrobarzanes opens up the earth with incantations and an animal sacrifice, and they successfully reach their destination thanks to Menippus’ triple disguise. The underworld, as is the case frequently in Dialogues of the Dead as well, is an egalitarian paradise delighting Menippus: the formerly rich and famous mourn their losses, the enlightened, like Diogenes, are laughing because they knew what was coming all along.85 When they finally meet, Teiresias the seer tells Menippus to stop philosophizing, live a normal life, and laugh as much as possible.86 With their mission accomplished, Menippus embraces the magos, and exits through Trophonius’ oracle in Lebadeia. Mithrobarzanes had advised him to take this route because it is quick and easy, and will land Menippus right back in Greece. The last words of Menippus’ account are: “With great difficulty I crawled up through the opening and, I do not know how, found myself in Lebadeia.”87 81. Nec. 6: τινος τῶν μάγων τῶν Ζωροάστρου μαθητῶν καὶ διαδόχων. 82. Nec. 6: τινι τῶν Χαλδαίων σοφῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ θεσπεσίῳ τὴν τέχνην, πολιῷ μὲν τὴν κόμην, γένειον δὲ μάλα σεμνὸν καθειμένῳ. 83. Costantini 2019a. Mackie’s (1904, 66–­68) commentary does not note the difference between the Zoroastrian Menippus says he wants, and the Chaldaean he ends up getting. 84. Nec. 8: αὐτὸς μὲν οὖν μαγικήν τινα ἐνέδυ στολὴν τὰ πολλὰ ἐοικυῖαν τῇ Μηδικῇ. 85. On egalitarian utopianism in Lucian’s underworld scenarios see Kuin 2021. On Menippus specifically in D. mort. see Relihan 1987, 192–­97; 1993, 114. 86. See Branham (1989b) on a possibly archaic source for Teiresias’ response. 87. Nec. 22: χαλεπῶς μάλα διὰ τοῦ στομίου ἀνερπύσας οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως ἐν Λεβαδείᾳ γίγνομαι.

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The closing of Menippus is an echo and a reversal of Menippus’ dismissal of Trophonius in Dialogues of the Dead: there he mocked the idea of “crawling down through the opening” at Lebadeia, here he “crawls up through the opening” in the exact same place, a bit confused but still elated and enlightened.88 In chapter 4 I discussed the intratextuality within Dialogues of the Gods, and the likelihood of some of the exchanges having been performed as a set. For Menippus and Dialogues of the Dead this case is more difficult to make, because the works do not belong to the same series. Nonetheless, it is certainly possible that Lucian used the exchange between Menippus, Trophonius, and Amphilochus as a quasi prolalia for the Menippus. Alternatively, an assiduous repeat listener to Lucian’s performances would have appreciated this inside joke, even if the two pieces were never performed on the same occasion. The effect of understanding Menippus as a response to Trophonius’ challenge in Dialogues of the Dead is that Menippus becomes yet another hypocrite who criticizes “sorcery” but cannot withstand its appeal. The importance of costuming in Menippus is replete with humorous literary resonances, such as Dionysus’ disastrous attempts to disguise himself as Heracles in Aristophanes’ Frogs, but it also carries a deeper meaning. Mithrobarzanes is referred to as magos in the piece twice (Nec. 9 and 22), and both instances occur only after he has put on the “magical cloak” (Nec. 8). In the context of the piece a Chaldaean wise man can become a Zoroastrian necromancer just by putting on the right outfit. Another profession in which outward appearance was a major marker in Lucian’s time was of course that of philosopher: Lucian himself, but also Dio Chrysostom, reflects at length on men who wear the philosopher’s beard and cloak yet are only fake philosophers underneath.89 When Menippus describes his initial encounter with Mithrobarzanes, his emphasis on the man’s beard serves to fashion him as a philosopher.90 A third piece of this intricate puzzle is Menippus’ own observation, after surveying the underworld but before meeting Teiresias, that life consists in Fortune giving each one of us “a costume” (ta schēmata), attiring us as kings, slaves, and everything in between. Those who protest when Fortune comes and collects the costumes at the end are foolish and ungrateful (Nec. 19). The entire conversation of Menippus is set at Lebadeia: by the end of the piece it becomes clear that Menippus encountered his friend just as he came out 88. Mackie (1904, 92) mentions D. mort. 10 in his commentary on Nec. 22, but he does not discuss the comic tension between the two passages; Relihan (2021, 25n62, 101n41) also cross-­ references the two passages without explicitly addressing the possible intratextual effect. On intratextuality and performance in Lucian see chapters 1 and 4. 89. E.g., Merc. cond. 40 (also discussed above in this section), D. mort. 20.8; D. Chr. 72. 90. Cf. Mackie 1904, 68.

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of the opening at Trophonius’ shrine. The story that Menippus tells his friend, then, can be understood as if it is a prophecy emerging from the questionable—­ according to many—­oracle at Lebadeia, similar to Aeneas’ exiting the underworld tellingly through the ivory gate of false dreams in Vergil’s katabasis.91 And, there are other indications that the audience is meant to question what Menippus gained by his elaborate campaign. The philosopher’s first lines as he emerges from the cave are the euphoric lines the title character speaks in Euripides’ Heracles as he emerges from the underworld. Anyone recognizing the quotation would know that Heracles loses his mind shortly thereafter, and how disastrously the play ends.92 Second, Menippus says that he wants to go down to the underworld and meet Teiresias “to learn from him, seeing as he is a seer and a wise man, what the best life is, which a sensible man would choose.”93 Teiresias initially refuses to answer, but when pressed tells Menippus that “the best life is the life of common people.”94 Menippus, however, had already come to the very same conclusion independently, when he said about the philosophers: “I found among them most of all ignorance and perplexity as I was investigating, so that they showed me very quickly that the life of common people is gold.”95 Menippus’ intricate quest suddenly looks a lot like Glaucias’ efforts to obtain his beloved: just as the latter could simply have paid the woman to come to him, Menippus already knew the answer to his own question before meeting Mithrobarzanes or Teiresias, and gained nothing by his magical journey. Nonetheless, he comes out of the cave giddy with his impressions, clamoring like Heracles and thinking himself much the wiser. Scholars have typically argued that the purpose of Menippus is mockery of Mithrobarzanes, which they contextualize with Lucian’s alleged “irreverence towards traditional religion as a whole, and in particular towards contemporary holy men.”96 But this interpretation cannot stand. Mithrobarzanes successfully dupes Menippus into believing him to be a Persian mage, and manages to 91. Verg., A. 6.893–­900. On the reception history of this passage, and the many attempts to excise or alter it see Thomas 2001, 193–­98. The fact that Mithrobarzanes says the exit will be easy, while Menippus says it was hard (Nec. 22) is also reminiscent of Aeneas’ struggle with the golden bough (Verg., A. 6.128–­45, 187–­211). On Lucian’s underworld as compared to Vergil’s see now Beek 2020, although they unfortunately do not discuss these specific moments from Nec. 92. E., HF 523–­24; cf. Mackie 1904, 57. 93. Nec. 6: μαθεῖν παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἅτε μάντεως καὶ σοφοῦ, τίς ἐστιν ὁ ἄριστος βίος καὶ ὃν ἄν τις ἕλοιτο εὖ φρονῶν. 94. Nec. 21: ὁ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν ἄριστος βίος. 95. Nec. 4: παρὰ γὰρ δὴ τούτοις μάλιστα εὕρισκον ἐπισκοπῶν τὴν ἄγνοιαν καὶ τὴν ἀπορίαν πλείονα, ὥστε μοι τάχιστα χρυσοῦν ἀπέδειξαν οὗτοι τὸν τῶν ἰδιωτῶν τοῦτον βίον. Cf. Relihan (1993, 111): “Menippus sought to find the truth he already knew.” 96. Costantini 2019a, 109–­10; cf. Nesselrath 2001, 154–­57; Spickermann 2013a, 144–­45. Relihan (1993, 108–­11; 2021, 4–­6), in contrast, does acknowledge that Menippus is targeted as well.

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sell him services at a high price which Menippus did not even need, yet the philosopher is no less happy a customer for it. Lucian the writer certainly revels in describing Mithrobarzanes’ practices as excessive, but ultimately Menippus is the real butt of the joke. Menippus thought himself far elevated above other philosophers, but, having rejected them, immediately turned to seers and mages. For all his astute observations about the “costumes” that Fortune bestows on us to live our lives, he is enchanted by the costumes of Mithrobarzanes—­first his large beard indicative of wisdom, next his “magic cloak”—­and Teiresias. Where Apuleius in his Apologia carefully constructs the normativity of his spiritual activities, Lucian lets this building collapse in on itself entirely: his protagonist Menippus, a Cynic philosopher no less, turns his philosophical inquiry into a magical quest, and does not even realize that he already has the prize he is hunting for in his back pocket. Peregrinus, the last text of this chapter, paints the life of a man who has perfected the art of opportunistic switching between the three spheres of philosophy, (purported) magic, and religion; in contrast to Alexander of Abonuteichos, Peregrinus does occur in numerous other sources.97 In Lucian’s telling Peregrinus is a case study in nonnormativity: leader of an early Christian community, disciple of an Egyptian Cynic, later a leading Cynic himself, and imitator of Indian sages in his death—­or so he thought. The passages describing Peregrinus’ association with the early Christians have attracted an extraordinary amount of attention from scholars, and have often been construed as slanderous about Jesus and his followers and ill-­informed. It is important to keep in mind that Lucian is primarily invested in drawing a picture of Peregrinus, yet the author is actually more knowledgeable about Christians in Palestine than one might expect.98 Peregrinus is beset by obscure narrators and viewpoints that are hard to disentangle. The work takes the form of a letter to someone named Cronius,99 and the letter writer is identified in the salutation as “Lucian” (Peregr. 1), yet the bulk of it is narrated by an unidentified man (Peregr. 7–­31). Following this episode “Lucian,” who says he listened to him as a bystander, remarks: “I do not know what that excellent man was called.”100 In the second half of the letter “Lucian” enters the narrative as a spectator of Peregrinus’ immolation (Peregr.   97. For discussion and comparison of the testimonia see: Clay 1992, 3430–­35; cf. Heusch 2007, 435–­60.   98. Bremmer 2007b, 746–­47. Early interest in the text can be gauged by the abundant scholia: more than seven pages in Rabe’s Teubner edition, Rabe 1971 [1906], 215–­22.   99. Possibly a Platonist philosopher, Jones 1986, 20n77, 117; cf. Dillon 1996, 362, 379–­80; contra Caster 1937, 246–­47; Schwartz 1951, 84. 100. Peregr. 31: οὐ γὰρ οἶδα ὅστις ἐκεῖνος ὁ βέλτιστος ἐκαλεῖτο.

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37–­40), and as a fellow traveler in a recollection about a boat trip they shared nine days before his death (Peregr. 43–­44). It appears that Lucian the author wants the audience to figure out for themselves that “Lucian” the letter writer and the anonymous narrator are one and the same person. In the opening of the letter “Lucian” says he angered bystanders when he denounced Peregrinus in a crowd (Peregr. 2), but he puts the denunciation in the mouth of the anonymous narrator (Peregr. 8–­31). This engaging puzzle renders the double “Lucian” figure completely unreliable: his ignorance about Peregrinus in the opening of the letter is feigned (Peregr. 5), and he is lying when he writes that he does not know the name of the anonymous narrator. When, toward the end of the piece, “Lucian” is delighted to find that his fantastical additions to Peregrinus’ story are being spread by others (Peregr. 40), the audience is left wondering about the reliability of the version they have just heard. Just as with Alexander, we cannot be content with an easy reading of Peregrinus as a satirical takedown of its protagonist. Lucian the author shows the audience a battle between Peregrinus and the duplicitous “Lucian” for control of the narrative and, ultimately, fame.101 The implications of these comic battles are, nonetheless, of real significance: they warn the audience to be careful and critical not only toward the sorcerers, but also toward the detractor-­narrators. Lucian the author undermines “Lucian” the narrator in order to strengthen his message that credulity and certitude are always risky. Peregrinus starts his career as a leader in a Christian community in Palestine. He traveled there, says the anonymous narrator, after being caught in adultery, luring a young boy, and murdering his own father—­sufficient reason for having to leave his native Mysia in Asia Minor (Peregr. 9–­10). After joining a Christian community he becomes their “prophet, leader of the rites, and chairperson,”102 he reads their sacred texts with them and adds works of his own. As Jan Bremmer has pointed out, Lucian’s narrator uses positions in religious institutions familiar to a Lucianic audience, so “prophet” here should not be understood in the Septuagint sense of the word, but rather as “manager of an oracle.” Nor should we take this terminology too literally: the narrator is piling on titles just to emphasize the prominence Peregrinus had gained among

101. As argued by Fields (2013, 230–­41) and König (2006, 243–­47), who nonetheless reach different conclusions. For Fields the similarity between “Lucian” and Peregrinus amounts to a self-­satirization by Lucian aimed at the profession of being a sophist; for König the author inserts “Lucian” into the narrative to show his power as the writer, and “Lucian” beats Peregrinus at his own fame-­hungry game. Goulet-­Cazé’s (2014, 195–­206) recent treatment ignores these issues entirely, and reads the piece as a straight takedown of Peregrinus by Lucian the author. 102. Peregr. 11: προφήτης καὶ θιασάρχης καὶ ξυναγωγεύς.

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his group of Christians.103 It also produces an effect of excess similar to the attribution of multiple different ritual acts to such characters as Alexander and the Hyperborean mage of Lovers of Lies. The narrator refers to Jesus as “that crucified sophist,” and, in the same chapter, comments that under his influence Christians despise property, keep things in common, and are eager to accept such ideas (Peregr. 13). As a result “whenever some sorcerer and crafty man comes to them . . . he quickly becomes rich right away by gaping at common people.”104 Peregrinus, the narrator implies, was precisely the right kind of “sorcerer and crafty man” to take full advantage of these trusting Christians. When he ends up in prison because of his activities as a Christian leader, the Christians feed and support him, calling him “the new Socrates” (Peregr. 12). The governor of Syria, who is said to be “a lover of philosophy,” frees him, because he realizes that Peregrinus would readily die to enhance his reputation (Peregr. 14)—­the governor will be right in the end. After his release Peregrinus returns to his home town, where the murder of his father has not yet been forgotten, and he fears prosecution. This is, in the telling of the narrator, when he decides to become a Cynic philosopher. He gets dressed up—­“he grew out his hair, put on a filthy cloak, fitted a wallet to his side and a staff in his hand; his outfit was truly theatrical”105—­and tells the assembly that he will relinquish the inheritance that his father left him to the state. Peregrinus’ strategy is entirely successful: When the people, poor men gaping for largesses, heard that, they cried out right away: “The one and only philosopher! The one and only patriot! The one and only rival of Diogenes and Crates!”106 The narrator tells us that, through his outfit and by giving up his property, Peregrinus has convinced his fellow citizens that he is a Cynic philosopher, in spite of his clearly ulterior motives. The narrator, using the same verb both times, echoes his earlier description of Peregrinus’ “gaping” eagerly at the Christians for their donations, with the people of Parium now “gaping” for Peregrinus’ largesses. Just as Peregrinus is depicted as joining the Christians for material gain, the locals hail him as Cynic philosopher for material gain. 103. Bremmer 2007b, 731–­32. 104. Peregr. 13: παρέλθῃ τις εἰς αὐτοὺς γόης καὶ τεχνίτης ἄνθρωπος . . . αὐτίκα μάλα πλούσιος ἐν βραχεῖ ἐγένετο ἰδιώταις ἀνθρώποις ἐγχανών. 105. Peregr. 15: ἐκόμα δὲ ἤδη καὶ τρίβωνα πιναρὸν ἠμπείχετο καὶ πήραν παρήρτητο καὶ τὸ ξύλον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ ἦν, καὶ ὅλως μάλα τραγικῶς ἐσκεύαστο. 106. Peregr. 15: τοῦτο ὡς ἤκουσεν ὁ δῆμος, πένητες ἄνθρωποι καὶ πρὸς διανομὰς κεχηνότες, ἀνέκραγον εὐθὺς ἕνα φιλόσοφον, ἕνα φιλόπατριν, ἕνα Διογένους καὶ Κράτητος ζηλωτήν.

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In the years that follow Peregrinus travels around more: first with the Christians, but he offends them by eating something illicit (Peregr. 16),107 then on to Egypt, where he studies asceticism with the Cynic Agathoboulus, shaving half his head, smearing his face with mud, and masturbating in public (Peregr. 17), and, finally, after a stint in Rome where he inveighs against the emperor (Peregr. 18), back to Greece, specifically Olympia (Peregr. 18). There, says the narrator, Peregrinus began to feel that his fame as a Cynic philosopher was waning, and started planning his suicide on the pyre, announcing at the games at Olympia that he would burn himself at the next festival four years later (Peregr. 20). As the reason for his planned self-­immolation Peregrinus, according to the narrator and “Lucian,” states his desire to teach others to despise death and endure frightful things (Peregr. 23, cf. 33). Theagenes, here depicted as a Cynic follower,108 adds that Peregrinus wants to throw himself on the pyre to demonstrate his “fortitude” in emulation of the Brahmans (Peregr. 25).109 After he has announced his immolation, Peregrinus begins telling people that afterward he will return “as a divine guardian of the night,” and, continues the narrator, Peregrinus clearly wants altars and golden statues set up in his honor (Peregr. 27). Then the narrator launches into hypotheticals: it would be just about right if people were to be found who claimed that they had been healed of quartan fevers by Peregrinus, or that they had met with the divine guardian of the night. He goes on to predict that Peregrinus’ followers will found an oracular shrine at the site of the pyre, that priests will be appointed, and that they will perform some nocturnal mystery rite (Peregr. 28). This is pure speculation on the part of the narrator. There is no indication, in Lucian’s piece or elsewhere, that Peregrinus ever presented himself as a healer, nor that his followers were planning an oracular shrine at Olympia.110 Peregrinus, once again in the voice of the letter writer, returns to its Christian motifs when “Lucian” boasts of the fake stories that he told about Peregrinus, namely that there was an earthquake after he died, and that a speaking vulture flew out from the pyre claiming in a human voice to be on its way to 107. This could either refer to nonkosher food, since it is probable that the Christ-­followers Peregrinus had joined were still keeping Jewish customs, or to sacrificial meat from polytheistic rites, cf. Bremmer 2007b, 743–­44. 108. He is also mentioned by Galen as an active Cynic in Rome, where he fell prey to a bad doctor, Meth. med. 13.15; cf. Pilhofer 2005, 52. 109. Cf. Peregr. 39. There were two cases of Indian philosophers’ self-­immolating that were famous among Greek speakers in Lucian’s time. One was about Calanus, a man who had come from India in Alexander of Macedon’s retinue and killed himself in Persia (mentioned at Peregr. 25), and the other was a more recent case about a man named Zarmanochegas who had thrown himself on the pyre at Athens during Augustus’ reign, Str. 15.1.72–­73. 110. There is, however, a mention in Athenagoras, of a statue for Peregrinus in Parium that “was said to give oracles” (λέγεται χρηματίζειν), Leg. pro Christ. 26; cf. Pilhofer 2005, 78–­80.

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Olympus (Peregr. 39). “Lucian” also says that he met with a bearded, older man who claimed to have seen Peregrinus walking about wearing a white garment and a crown of wild olives; the same man said that he saw the vulture that “Lucian” fabricated (Peregr. 40). Finally, Peregrinus sent exhortatory written messages to the most important cities through ambassadors (Peregr. 41). “Lucian’s” account is a mishmash of possible references to Jesus’ resurrection, the death and apotheosis of Roman rulers, and the lives and letters of early Christians. Jesus’ death coincided with an earthquake according to the gospel of Matthew (27:51). A dove was seen after Polycarp was burnt at the stake, and Paul and Ignatius were known for and through their letters. An earthquake was also reported at the time of Caesar’s death, as well as an eagle flying up to heaven at his funeral, symbolizing his apotheosis, and the release of an eagle at imperial funerals is attested from Augustus onward. “Lucian” has mockingly turned the majestic eagle, and, possibly, the lovely dove into an unpleasant vulture.111 Like the mythical Proteus whose name he adopted, Lucian’s Peregrinus is a shapeshifter. When he turns to Cynicism he “puts on philosophy like some garment.”112 His philosophical commitments are described in exoticizing terms by connecting them to scandalous far-­flung practices from Egypt and India, rather as if they are nonnormative ritual practices. Lucian uses his descriptive aesthetics of excess for Peregrinus not just as a sorcerer, but as a philosopher as well, which underscores both how entangled these two roles are in this specific narrative, and how much the author relishes using this register of baroqueness to style individuals and practices as objectionable—­in the case of Peregrinus even posthumously, in his role of another risen Jesus. Peregrinus is repeatedly compared to Socrates, also by his Christian companions,113 and he is likened to Jesus throughout, explicitly, by his Christian followers, and implicitly by the narrator. Both men are called “sophists,” are seen as lawgivers for the Christians, and have reputedly been resurrected.114 When Peregrinus appears satis111. On Peregrinus in relation to Polycarp and Ignatius see Bremmer 2021, with references to earlier scholarship. On Peregrinus’ and Jesus’ resurrection see Bremmer 2007b, 744–­46; cf. (skeptically) Pilhofer 2005, 90. See McIntyre (2019, 31–­34) on eagles and deified emperors. 112. Peregr. 18: τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ὑποδυόμενόν τινα. The narrator attributes this astute observation to “the emperor,” who must be Antoninus Pius, cf. Pilhofer 2005, 69. 113. Peregr. 5, 12, 37, 43. On the comparison see Hansen 2005, 136–­37; cf. Overwien 2006, 192–­95, 200–­8. On Socrates’ popularity among early Christian authors see Pilhofer 2005, 63; Bremmer 2007b, 735. 114. Jesus is called “sophist” at Peregr. 13, Peregrinus at Peregr. 32. Justin Martyr explicitly denies that Jesus was a “sophist” which suggests that others than Lucian were using this label for him in the second century CE as well, Apol. 1.14.5; cf. Smith 2014 [1978], 259. See Perkins (2012) on the significance of Justin’s denial in the context of early Christian attitudes to (rhetorical) educa-

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fied with the crowd leading him to the pyre, the narrator snidely remarks: “Men who are led to the cross . . . are followed by many more people.”115 The narrator describes both the cult that Jesus introduced and the rites that the narrator projects to be held in Peregrinus’ honor after his death as a teletē, which is the Greek word that was used for mystery rites requiring initiation, such as the ones at Eleusis and the ones allegedly founded by Alexander of Abonuteichos (Alex. 38).116 The narrator appears to be aware that Jesus’ fame had already reached many more people than that of Peregrinus, and by grouping the two men together as religious innovators also dabbling in philosophy, he shows Peregrinus losing even at his own sordid game. The story of Peregrinus is held up as something to laugh at by the letter writer “Lucian,” both at the beginning and the end of the piece, with reference to Democritus, yet another philosopher.117 There is no doubt that Peregrinus as a whole is very funny: it is an overflowing tableau of roguishness and absurdities that brings into play everything from the spectacle of Roman emperor worship, to naïve Jesus-­followers in Palestine, to exhibitionist Cynic antics in Egypt. There is also no doubt that the “Lucian” character is laughing at Peregrinus as a man deserving of the harshest mockery. But what about the audience? As discussed in this section above, the voices that Lucian uses to tell Peregrinus’ story are extremely unreliable. It is as if the “Lucian” character has become infected with Peregrinus’ protean shape-­shifting, and thinks that he too can get away with hiding in plain sight. Yet, the unreliability of “Lucian” does not and cannot unsay everything that he has told the audience, who have encountered a complex figure: Peregrinus is equal parts smart rogue and pathetic fame-­seeker. When the audience laughs at Peregrinus, they will also be laughing at themselves, since they are implicated in his game of smoke and mirrors almost as much as “Lucian.” Peregrinus is a product of their society, and of their susceptibility to the allure of someone brewing together philosophy and sorcery, spectacularly. tion. The term “sorcerer” in Peregr. seems to target Peregrinus primarily (see above in this section), but Celsus used it frequently of Jesus, e.g., Origen, Cels. 1.71, 2.32. 115. Peregr. 34: τοῖς ἐπὶ τὸν σταυρὸν ἀπαγομένοις . . . πολλῷ πλείους ἕπονται. Pilhofer (2005, 85) rejects this as a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion. In general mention of crucifixion need not have Christian connotations in this period, but within the context of the piece it seems inescapable that this is an intentional allusion. There is another reference to crucifixion at Peregr. 45. 116. Jesus’ teletē at Peregr. 11; Peregrinus’ teletē at Peregr. 28. Pilhofer (2005) does not comment on the terminology, Bremmer (2007b, 734) only discusses the use of the term in early Christianity. 117. Peregr. 7, 45. The representation of the notion of Democritean laughter is inaccurate, which is a response to the absurdity of human existence as a whole—­as it is at Vit. Auct. 13—­not mockery of a specific target; cf. Halliwell 2008, 469.

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Conclusion Where Apuleius’ Apology works hard to demarcate philosophy, magic, and religion, Lucian’s portrayals of Menippus and especially Peregrinus expose the artificiality of these normative boundaries, and the many ways in which these fields of expertise are implicated with each other. By showing elites engaged in nonnormative practices in Lovers of Lies and Alexander, Lucian subverts his contemporaries’ efforts to map the normativity of religion onto socioeconomic differences, while, conversely, the popular jokes from Philogelos about sorcerers undermine the stereotype of the masses naïvely entrusting themselves to such practitioners. At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned Lucian’s attribution of a strong interest in sorcery to female sex workers, which would seem to reaffirm the association of low social status with nonnormative religious practice. In his work Dialogues of the Hetaerae female prostitutes do indeed hire (female) professionals to mix potions and say incantations for them.118 However, they also repeatedly participate in normative religious activities, like praying to Artemis for safe childbirth, and going to the Dionysia or Thesmophoria.119 Even when Lucian appears to satisfy expectations about women of low social status engaging with sorcery, he quickly turns it around to show the opposite too. By casting aside the standards of normativity that members of the elite wanted to uphold within the realm of philosophy, religion, and magic, Lucian once again pursues an anti-­hierarchical agenda that would likely have appealed especially to non-­elite audience members attending his live performances. And perhaps the members of the elite present, recognizing themselves in what they heard, were able to laugh a knowing laugh at themselves and their peers. In the first half of the chapter we saw how Lucian’s skepticism regarding the philanthropy of the gods leads him to discredit the likelihood that divination and in particular oracular consultation can yield usable results. Oracle mongers, Alexander as much as Trophonius or the Pythia, have successfully commodified the unknowable. What I have called the aesthetics of excess is epitomized in their elaborate and careful costuming, which underscores the importance of personality and performance for these professionals. Likewise, Peregrinus’ 118. D. meretr. 1.2, 4.1. Gilhuly (2006; 2007) reads these passages as a literary construct, while Faraone (1999, 149–­51) and Dickie (2001, 10–­11) take them at face value. Women were in general thought to be susceptible to sorcery and other nonnormative practices, as shown by e.g., Juv. 6.511–­91; cf. Winkler 1991, 224–­28; Graf 1997 [1994], 185–­90; Faraone 1999, 132–­60; Stratton 2014. 119. Artemis: D. meretr. 2.3; Dionysia: D. meretr. 11.2; Thesmophoria: D. meretr. 2.1; see also D. meretr. 7.1, 7.4, 14.3. On Lucian’s inclusion of prostitutes in the Thesmophoria see chapter 2, and see also chapter 4 on these dialogues.

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careful staging of his immolation on the pyre is about creating a memorable image. Sorcerers in Lucian more often than not manage to sell things for a high price that could have been obtained for free or for much less; they have effectively commodified an aesthetic experience. In his Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious Freud discusses several jokes featuring marriage-­brokers, who, similar to the seers and sorcerers of Lucian, are mockingly presented as either obtuse, greedy, unscrupulous, or a combination of these things. But Freud argues that the marriage-­broker is just “a whipping boy,” the real object of the jokes are “everyone involved in the business of arranging a marriage,” and, ultimately, “institutions, people in their capacity as vehicles of institutions, dogmas of morality or religion.”120 Lucian’s seers and sorcerers are indeed also greedy for fame and money, opportunistic, and painted for us in bright colors and outlandish costumes—­altogether ridiculous. Yet Lucian’s interest in surrounding them with customers and detractors who in his constructed dramas behave in questionable ways too, shows that he wants to shed a light on everyone involved in the business of divination and sorcery, and on the underlying ideas and expectations that created the likes of Alexander of Abonuteichos, Peregrinus, and Mithrobarzanes. The practices that Lucian describes are generally attested in other sources, literary, epigraphic, or papyrological. Also, in order for jokes to be funny their contents need to ring somewhat true to the audience—­this principle holds in the realm of sorcery and divination as much as anywhere else. Whether we can trace a second-­century CE change in the characteristics and prevalence of certain ritual activities by reading Lucian’s accounts of them remains a difficult question to answer. Since, as noted above in section 1, “magic” has to do with how practices are described on a scale of normativity, rather than essential differences between practices, the strong interest from Lucian and his contemporaries in “magic” comes down to a predilection for describing rituals as nonnormative, rather than an uptick in such practices taking place. Nonetheless, the observation that oracular consultations of our period appear to be more focused on the individual does resonate with Lucian’s depiction of sorcerers, seers, and the society that produced them.121 The characters we have seen in this chapter are driven in their attempted interactions with the divine by individual quests, be it for money, pleasure, fame, or, in the case of Menippus, life advice. Mediations through sorcery or oracular consultations fundamentally are about strategies for controlling the world we live in. Lucian puts the spotlight 120. Freud 1960 [1905], 129. 121. Bowden 2013, see n2 above.

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on humans’ inflated expectations of divine interest in our well-­being, and the tendency to overestimate our capacity to communicate with the gods through mediation. Due to its aesthetic lure people turn to “magic” for objectives that would be obtained much more easily without. In these moments Lucian confronts us with the grotesqueness of the human desire to control the particulars of our destiny. The goēs can be a philosopher, sophist, seer, and sorcerer all at once, he can be Alexander or Jesus, Socrates or Peregrinus. But the denouement of the narrator-­“Lucians,” performed by Lucian the author, communicates to the audience that just as they should beware of the goēs, they must beware of him, too, because of the aesthetic pull of his vibrant, comic performance. As we, as listeners and readers, try to accept at his instigation the unknowability of the future, and of the reason for our continued existence, the author reminds us to place the truth claims of his own work under the same humble caution, while forcefully drawing us into his imaginative universe all the same.

Conclusion If There Are Gods . . .

Lucian’s piece On the Syrian Goddess gives the audience a mesmerizing tour of the sanctuary at Hierapolis through the eyes of a devoted pilgrim, who is a less than reliable narrator. The work’s many striking details and complexities have received ample scholarly attention, and yet much of the pilgrim’s account remains puzzling.1 One such moment occurs in the pilgrim’s description of the sacred lake at Hierapolis, thought to contain sacred fish. Such fishponds are attested in connection with the goddess in several other places as well.2 In On the Syrian Goddess the narrator describes a ritual in which the statues of Zeus and Hera are brought down to the lake: Very great festivals take place there, which are called “descents to the lake” because in them all the cult images go down to the lakeside. Hera arrives first, on account of the fish, so that Zeus does not see them first; for if this happens, they say that all the fish are done for. When he comes and is about to see them, she stands in front of him, keeps him away, and turns him back with many entreaties.3 This passage is typically assumed to describe a genuine practice at Hierapolis, but the strange arrangement of the statues has not been explained in a satisfactory way.4 It seems better, therefore, to put the question of the account’s accu1. On DDS, its authenticity as a Lucianic work, and the surrounding scholarly debate see chapter 4. 2. Lightfoot 2003, 489. 3. DDS 47: γίγνονται δὲ αὐτόθι καὶ πανηγύριές τε μέγισται, καλέονται δὲ ἐς τὴν λίμνην καταβάσιες, ὅτι ἐν αὐτῇσιν ἐς τὴν λίμνην τὰ ἱρὰ πάντα κατέρχεται. ἐν τοῖσιν ἡ Ἥρη πρώτη ἀπικνέεται, τῶν ἰχθύων εἵνεκα, μὴ σφέας ὁ Ζεὺς πρῶτος ἴδηται· ἢν γὰρ τόδε γένηται, λέγουσιν ὅτι πάντες ἀπόλλυνται. καὶ δῆτα ὁ μὲν ἔρχεται ὀψόμενος, ἡ δὲ πρόσω ἱσταμένη ἀπείργει τέ μιν καὶ πολλὰ λιπαρέουσα ἀποπέμπει. 4. Anderson (1976b, 56, 68–­82) and Lightfoot (2003, 492–­94) offer no explanation for the

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racy off to the side, and attempt a different approach: what if Lucian has the pilgrim construe the ritual in this peculiar way because he wanted to make a joke? The vignette, in spite of its brevity, draws on several of Lucian’s favorite theological problems. The ethical anthropomorphization of the gods in literary narrative, that is, imagining them behaving like humans, is here overlaid with their aesthetic anthropomorphization in statuary, whereby they are fashioned to look like humans. It recalls the introduction to Lucian’s Tragic Zeus, which depicts the gods as animated versions of their own cult statues who argue over the relative importance of their status as gods and their value as precious commodities.5 Similarly, in On the Syrian Goddess, the cult statues of Hera and Zeus at Hierapolis are said to “go down” to the lake—­an anthropomorphized description of a procession in which worshippers carry statues from the temple to another place, in this case down to the water. Hera’s statue goes first, and this cultic detail is given a specific narrative motivation: she needs to protect the sacred fish from Zeus, and narrowly succeeds in doing so. But what are we meant to think Zeus would do to the fish, such that they “would be done for,” if Hera does not stop him? The most straightforward scenario, seemingly, is that Zeus would eat the fish. This ties in with Lucian’s depiction of the gods, and Zeus in particular, as gluttons in the context of his comic exploration of the implications of animal sacrifice which asks why humans would burn animals for the gods to consume. Here, if we indeed interpret this to be a joke on Zeus’ gluttony, Lucian would be pursuing an analogous question, namely why humans would keep sacred fish for the gods; these fish are, after all, dedicated to the Syrian goddess, understood as Hera in the piece. Alternatively, since his wife Hera is the one keeping him away from the fish, and her role as protectress of the marriage bond is emphasized throughout On the Syrian Goddess, the author might in this passage be encouraging the audience to think of Zeus’ infamous promiscuity—­there are precedents for imagining Zeus as capable of bestiality even beyond taking on animal guise himself.6 On arrangement of the statues, and Caduff (1986, 252) and Polański (1998, 79–­117) ignore it. Harmon (1925, 400–­401) suggests a first identification of Hadad with the sun. Clemen (1938, 52–­53) argues that Zeus is turned away because he cannot be allowed to see Hera bathe, but modesty is out of place between consorts. Fontenrose (1951, 147) connects DDS 47 with stories of Atargatis being plunged into the lake either by Mopsus as punishment, or in flight from Typhon. Barstad (1976, 163–­73) argues that Hera’s protest against Zeus stem from the Seth and Anat myth, where Seth forces himself on Anat in the water, and that Zeus’ threat to the fish is connected to the deadly glances of other male Semitic divinities. Drijvers (1980, 95–­96) reads Lucian’s account of Hera, Zeus, and the fish as a sign of the increased importance of Atargatis at the expense of Hadad at Hierapolis. Still, none of these accounts explains why Zeus/Hadad, or whichever other divinity he might be associated with here, would want to get to the fish. 5. On the introduction of I. trag. see chapter 5. 6. Compare also D. mar. 11.1, where the West Wind says that Zeus still desired Io “very much”

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either reading, Zeus, the father of the gods, is depicted on the verge of engaging in undesirable, destructive behavior, all the while inhabiting his cult statue. His wife Hera, also in the form of her cult statue, prevents this deed not only by standing in front of him, but also by uttering “many entreaties.” The joke here, if there is one, is that the cult statues of Hera and Zeus at Hierapolis are made to act out a thoroughly Lucianic plot: Zeus, as always, cannot restrain his urges, Hera plays her part of obstructionist wife. In this book I have argued that Lucian depicts the relationship between gods and humans as fraught with insecurity and misunderstanding on both sides, while the gods’ interference in human affairs is marked by incompetence and recklessness. The gods’ behavior disqualifies them entirely as ethical models, whether they are engaging with each other or with humans, whether they are acting in the realm of justice and fairness or in the area of political deliberation and leadership (chapter 5), whether they are negotiating powerful erotic desires (chapter 4), or other bodily urges (chapter 3). Sometimes they are shown to be culpable, ill-­willed actors, but just as often they are simply incapable of living up to their better selves. Humans on their part, or at least very many of them, are portrayed as guilty of thinking that they know the truth about the nature of the gods and how to interact with them, when in fact they know nothing, and are (willfully) blind to the inconsistencies in their beliefs and actions vis-­à-­vis the gods. Lucian’s comic working through of human dealings with the divine primarily takes aim at the philosophical theologies of his contemporaries. Their systematization of religion is exposed as ludicrously inconsistent at best, or—­more likely—­harmfully wrong. Lucian’s lackluster gods embody a comic yet provocative challenge to philosophical arguments for a purely good, self-­sufficient, and just divine: would not an assemblage of powerful but flawed and erratic gods be a far more plausible explanation for the vicissitudes of everyday life, especially for those of us who are not born into wealth and power? I have used Max Weber’s account of the theodicy of good fortune to elucidate second-­century CE philosophical theology and Lucian’s critique of it. It was a cornerstone of Stoic and middle Platonist thought that some people do well because philanthropic and provident gods—­themselves infinitely good and of exemplary virtue—­deem them worthy of good fortune on account of after she was turned into a heifer; in Ov., Met. 1.733–­45 Zeus’ desire is likewise not diminished by Io’s transformation, although there the relationship does not continue. A late fifth-­to early fourth-­ century BCE kabeirion-­ware skyphos (Heidelberg 190) shows either an aroused, mostly naked Zeus chasing a boar and waving his thunderbolt, so Dover (1989 [1978], 128–­29) and Walsh (2009, 120–­22, 355n44), or, according to Mitchell (2009, 263, with fig. 129 on 257) a grotesque caricature of a mostly naked hunter chasing a boar waving a spear. On Zeus’ sexuality see chapter 4.

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their virtue. In Lucian’s framework this notion is unacceptable, in its premises as much as in its consequences. First, and here Lucian borrows liberally from the Epicureans, it is comically unlikely that the gods would be capable of all-­ encompassing providence that is both fair and philanthropic. Second, it is false and transparently self-­serving for the rich and powerful to argue that the poor stay poor because, by some inscrutable divine measure of moral value, they do not deserve better, and vice versa. The final blow is that imperial philosophical theology was unable to rid itself fully from the divine anthropomorphism embedded deeply in ancient cult and culture, which is why Lucian’s hyperrealistic anthropomorphized gods would have been an effective comic vehicle for his message. Since making large animal sacrifices, dedicating expensive cult statues, and defending or correcting mythological narratives about inter alia Zeus’ philandering continued to be important for those espousing a purely good, abstract godhead, Lucian had every reason to ask his audience how likely it is that a Zeus who might at any moment pilfer some sacred fish would be a good judge of moral value in humans. At first glance it might seem banal or even backward for Lucian to be pointing out that traditional Greek accounts of the gods paint a rather bleak picture of them, and that many ancient ritual practices are based on conflicting premises. Did not the likes of Xenophanes of Colophon and (Plato’s) Socrates already formulate those criticisms centuries earlier? While the theological issues engaged by Lucian indeed already had a long history by the second century CE (chapter 2), they stood unresolved, and in some respects actually became more urgent in his lifetime. The ideological underpinnings of the Roman Empire were intimately intertwined with the unshakability of just divine providence: Roman rule was willed by the gods, Roman emperors emulated divine virtue, and, all the way down to local societal structures, those in control were deserving of their role. In tandem with the importance of moral divine exemplarity, the traditional ways of imagining the gods both in statuary and narrative remained important. As we have seen, Lucian’s contemporary Aelius Aristides took pains to bring traditional myths in line with the putative virtue of the gods, while not much earlier Dio Chrysostom went to great lengths to defend both the importance of cult statues, and the value of Zeus the divine ruler as a model in governance. Finally, in Lucian’s time the ideological dominance of presenting the divine as purely and abstractly good coincided with ostentatious animal sacrifices for the gods funded by the wealthy, unabated interest in divinatory practices of all kinds, and a high popularity of innovative spiritual leaders who offered privileged access to divine agency. In the midst of all of this Lucian, through his comedy, undertakes to pierce the purportedly rigorous theology

Conclusion 231

of divine benevolence by exposing both its internal inconsistencies, and the hypocrisies of its adherents. Although Lucian envisioned and probably promoted that his works would eventually end up in the hands of private readers, his main purpose was to appeal to large, popular audiences by performing his pieces in the major hubs of the Roman East (chapter 1). Because he performed live, his criticism of philosophical theology via comedy reached a much more diverse audience, including those who were partially or fully illiterate, than would have been the case if he had only circulated his works in written form. Emphatically placing Lucian in this performance context helps explain the many connections between his texts and other popular genres such as pantomime and the fable, and it corroborates the significant intellectual scope of Roman popular culture. He positioned himself as a performer for the many, and simultaneously pulled from and contributed to their intellectual culture. Lucian’s challenge to the theodicy of good fortune would have reached not just members of the elite but also those lacking in wealth and power, and, importantly, it would have been received in a public setting. Audience members shared a moment of laughter, but they also evaluated and likely emulated each other’s responses. The subversive social criticism embedded in the majority of Lucian’s works was not meant for elite house parties, even if some of his more pedantic and rhetorically oriented pieces (like Mistaken Critic or Lexiphanos) perhaps were. He broadcast his criticism into the public space, where the rich and the poor brushed shoulders, and where it mattered most. More so than for his account of the theodicy of good fortune, Max Weber is known for his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, written about ten years before his essay about “die Theodizee des Glückes.” In this book, he describes how the Calvinist doctrine of predestination fueled a particular work ethic which combined a dedication to the accumulation of wealth with the moral requirement of a sober, solemn, and industrious lifestyle. Those who regarded themselves as chosen could demonstrate this by their good work ethic and sobriety; conversely, success in one’s pursuit of wealth came to be understood as a sign of indeed belonging to the chosen ones—­with this final step we are already very close to the idea of the theodicy of good fortune.7 The sobriety and solemnity of Calvinist Protestantism stands, to put it mildly, in stark contrast to the laughing gods of Lucian’s comic dialogues, and to the hotbed of innovative cults, spectacular rituals, and holy men that informed his day-­to-­ day experience and his works. 7. Weber 2001 [1904/5], 102–­25.

232  Lucian’s Laughing Gods

Weber’s account of the sobriety and solemnity of Calvinist Protestantism underlines precisely how foreign Lucian’s treatment of the gods would have seemed to scholarly readers formed by such a religious environment, or other, similar brands of nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century Christianity. Both Albin Lesky and Karl Marx were quite certain that Lucian’s depiction of the gods was proof that they were “done and dead,” and considered it impossible that anyone could have respect or use for gods with whom “every kind of fun  .  .  . is allowed”8—­imagining, it seems, that such “fun” would deflate the gods’ authority in an instant, much as a needle pops a balloon. This book has argued, instead, that in ancient religion laughter was not desacralizing, and that the gods of ancient Greek and Roman religion were imagined to alternately enjoy, reciprocate, or retaliate human laughter, but that they could not be destroyed by it. The possibility of actively interacting with one’s gods in playful and humorous ways is not an exclusive feature of ancient Greek and Roman religion; it has been and still is a component of (among others) Hindu and Shintō practices. These comparanda make scholars’ longstanding misinterpretation and even erasure of laughter in relation to the ancient Greek and Roman gods still more remarkable,9 and this stands as further testimony to the need for considering the ancient Mediterranean not in isolation but in its global context. Conversely, it would be worthwhile to investigate whether the disappearance of this mode of interacting with the gods during the transition from traditional cult to Christianity in the Roman Empire can productively be analyzed as the result of a gradual, protracted form of epistemicide.10 The incapability to imagine laughter as a viable mode for communication with the divine has likely skewed the interpretation not only of the Lucianic corpus, but of other sources as well, so that, if we return to our evidence for cult practices and attitudes toward the gods in the ancient Mediterranean with this obstacle now removed, we might find that laughter was a much more important feature of ancient religion than previously understood. Doing it right, and thereby showing oneself to be predestined for salvation   8. Lesky 1961, 33. See chapter 2 for further discussion.   9. Masuzawa’s (2005) important study on how the European academy invented the notion of “world religions” through a discourse of “othering” is highly relevant to this issue, especially her discussion of how and why “Olympian polytheism” was set aside from “Eastern polytheism,” ibid., 147–­206. See also Styers (2004) on how the Protestant and Catholic Reformations contributed to religion progressively coming to be understood as “a matter of properly warranted cognition,” with “visible manifestations of religious life and practice” now disparaged “as dubious encrustations,” Styers 2004, 5. 10. While there is laughter in (early) Christianity, engaging the divine directly through this register appears to be vanishingly rare, see the Introduction. On the concept of epistemicide and its relevance to the Roman Empire see Padilla Peralta 2020.

Conclusion 233

in Weber’s account of Calvinism entails what we might think of as an aesthetic performance: wealth must be accumulated but cannot be flaunted, instead one must exhibit a sufficiently sober lifestyle. Lucian’s contemporaries organized the rich variety of religious practices of their day discursively on a spectrum of normativity. In turn, this normativity was mapped onto socioeconomic differences, whereby those of lower socioeconomic status were assumed to participate in nonnormative practices and vice versa. Lucian eagerly subverts these structures by showing elites engaged in nonnormative practices, which he marks out as being nonnormative by painting them in overly bright colors—­ detailed descriptions of elaborate costuming of practitioners, smells and sounds involved in rituals, and combinations of several practices into one rite—­in what I have labeled an aesthetics of excess (chapter 6). Just as in Weber’s account, the aesthetic performance of one’s status as favored by the gods was sufficiently important, it seems, that a critic like Lucian could use this, and turn it on its head: he brings down those who considered themselves divinely favored in their successful pursuit of wealth and power by clothing them in the comically baroque dress of nonnormative “magic” practice, which by their own measure ought to be far removed from them as members of the elite. Within the study of ancient religion the nexus of the (non)normativity of cult practices, socioeconomic hierarchies, and aesthetic performance likewise deserves further exploration, beyond Lucian’s staging of it. Laughter is unstable and open-­ended by definition, and therefore exceedingly difficult to interpret, as the slippery joke about Zeus and the sacred fish from On the Syrian Goddess illustrates so clearly. Lucian chose to speak about the gods (and all the rest) with his audiences through comedy, in order to lure them with the pleasure of laughter, and to make them complicit in the dynamics of his plots. (Whose side are you on in Tragic Zeus, do you laugh along with Momus or with Zeus, with Damis or with Timocles?) At the same time, laughter, playfulness, and humor enable and abet his reluctance to offer unambiguous, positive pronouncements in his works, especially on the gods. Lucian uses the characters in his speeches and dialogues—­humans and gods—­to act out plots that assertively destroy the theologies of others. With this accomplished, however, the author leaves his audience members to their own devices, ultimately preaching epistemological humility on what the gods are like, and on the why of human experience. But this is far from an empty letdown. To say, as Lucian does, that the world is not exactly as it should be, that the rich and powerful are not more deserving than everyone else, and that therefore—­if they exist and act in the world—­the gods must not be entirely good, can lift a heavy burden from the backs of those who are ready to listen.

Note on Abbreviations

Abbreviations follow the LSJ for Greek authors and works, the OLD for Latin authors and works, and the Oxford Classical Dictionary and l’Année Philologique for journal titles, and other terms. The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, for which there is as of yet no uniformly adopted acronym, is here referred to as BrillDAG. Because many of Lucian’s works are known under several titles, a table of the abbreviation (as per LSJ), the Latin title, and, if applicable, the specific English title for each piece discussed in the book is provided. I generally follow Jones (1986, x–­xii), with the exception of On the Syrian Goddess, where I follow Lightfoot (2003) in using DDS rather than D. Syr.; for Dialogi meretricii I have opted for the title Dialogues of the Hetaerae rather than Jones’ Dialogues of the Courtesans. For the internal numbering of the sets of Dialogues I follow Macleod’s OCT. Alex. [Am.] Anach. Apol. Astr. Bacch. Bis acc. Cat. Cont. DDS D. Deor. Dear. Iud. Dem. Deor. Conc. Dips. D. mar. D. meretr. D. mort. Dom.

Alexander sive Pseudomantis Amores Anacharsis Apologia Astrologia Bacchus Bis accusatus Cataplus Contemplantes sive Charon De Dea Syria Dialogi Deorum Dearum Iudicium Demonax Deorum Concilium Dipsades Dialogi marini Dialogi meretricii Dialogi Mortuorum De Domo

Alexander (or the False Prophet) Loves Self-­Defense Astrology Double Indictment Downward Journey Charon On the Syrian Goddess Dialogues of the Gods Judgment of the Goddesses Assembly of the Gods Dialogues of the Marine Gods Dialogues of the Hetaerae Dialogues of the Dead Hall 235

236  Lucian’s Laughing Gods Electr. Eun. Fug. Gall. Harm. Herm. Herod. Hist. conscr. Icar. I. conf. Im. Ind. I. trag. Iud. Voc. Laps. Lex. Luct. Merc. cond. Nav. Nec. Nigr. Peregr. Philops. Pisc. Pro Im. Prom. Prom. es

Electrum Eunuchus Fugitivi Gallus Harmonides Hermotimus Herodotus Quomodo Historia conscribenda sit Icaromenippus Iuppiter confutatus Imagines Adversus Indoctum Iuppiter tragoedus Iudicium Vocalium Pro Lapsu Lexiphanes De Luctu De Mercede Conductis Navigium Necyomantia sive Menippus Nigrinus De Morte Peregrini Philopseudes Piscator Pro Imaginibus Prometheus Prometheus es in verbis

Pseudol. Rh. Pr. Sacr. Salt. Sat. Sol. Somn. Symp. Tim. Tox. Tyr. VH Vit. Auct. Zeux.

Pseudologista Rhetorum Praeceptor De Sacrificiis De Saltatione Saturnalia Soloecista Somnium sive Vita Luciani Symposium sive Lapithae Timon Toxaris Tyrannicida Verae Historiae Vitarum Auctio Zeuxis

Amber Eunuch Runaways Cock

On Writing History Zeus Refuted Portraits Uncultured Man Tragic Zeus Consonants at Law Apology for a Slip in Salutation Mourning On Hirelings in Great Houses Ship Menippus (On the Death of) Peregrinus Lovers of Lies Fisherman Defense of the Portraits You Are a Prometheus with Words Mistaken Critic Teacher of Rhetoric On Sacrifices On the Dance Solecist Dream Banquet Tyrannicide True Histories Sale of Lives

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Index Locorum

Acts of Paul and Thecla 8: 151 18: 151 20: 151 Aelius Aristides 27.35: 156n5 29.4–­5: 73n88 29.8: 73 29.10–­11: 73 29.13–­14: 73 29.16–­19: 74 34.25: 139 34.42: 46n98 37.17: 184n133 38.24: 184n133 39.5: 184n133 39.11: 184n133 41.10: 184n133 42.12: 184n133 43.19: 156n5 43.25: 123n39 45.26: 184n133 46.9: 184n133 46.33–­41: 73n90, 139–­40 48.32–­33: 151 51.29–­34: 44n78, 47n100 Aeschines 2.76: 167n50 Aesop 3: 23n101 56: 209n60 100: 170 101: 23n101

117: 23n101 295: 187 306: 187–­88 313: 183–­84 322: 23n101 Alciphron 4.6: 61n31 Alexis Hesione PCG 89: 98n47 Linus PCG 140: 98n47 Antiphanes F 252: 96n35 Anthologia Palatina 11.64: 37n48 9.524: 65 pseudo-­Apollodorus Library 1.5.1: 60n28 Appian Syrian Wars 10.59–­62: 149 Apollonius of Rhodes 3.114–­18: 122n35, 136n100 Apuleius Apologia 6–­8: 212 13–­16: 212 25: 212 Metamorphoses 1.7–­20: 212n73 1.12: 141 271

272  Index Locorum 2.6–­32: 212n73 2.12–­14: 209n60 3.12–­29: 212n73 3.27: 112n109 4.28–­6.24: 141 4.28–­29: 151n165 5.28–­31: 147n150 6.4: 147n150 6.9: 147n150 6.15: 141 6.22: 137n106, 142 6.23: 158n14 6.24: 141–­42 6.26: 112n109 7.20: 112n109 8.23: 112n109 9.29–­31: 212n73 10.29–­34: 152n170 11: 144n136, 152n166, 212n73 11.8: 141 Aristides of Athens Apology 9: 140 10–­11: 131 Aristophanes Acharnians 513: 39n54 Assemblywomen 1154–­57: 46n98 Birds 30: 39n54 191–­93: 97 550–­64: 97, 139n113 809–­11: 99 846–­1118: 99 879–­94: 95n31 1231–­37: 97 1506: 98n44 1514–­20: 97–­98 1567–­73: 168n54 1583–­85: 99n52 1603–­4: 98 1615: 168n54 1616–­25: 98n48 1629: 168n54

1641–­70: 169n56 1678–­79: 168n54 1687–­88: 99n52 1689–­92: 98 Clouds 623: 58 1076–­82: 123 Frogs 16–­19: 66 42–­43: 66 60–­65: 66, 98n47 107: 98n47 308: 66 368: 66 371: 64n48 375: 66 411–­34: 66 479–­90: 66 503–­12: 98n47 549–­71: 98nn46–­47, 102n61 1006: 9n32 1089–­90: 66 Lysistrata 499: 9n32 Peace 50–­53: 46n98 192–­3: 109n96 202: 109n96 722–­24: 136n100 741: 66n58, 98n47 1019–­22: 111n105 Wasps 60: 98n47 1361–­65: 60n25 Wealth 1128–­30: 109n96 1153–­64: 10n36 Women at the Thesmophoria 249–­65: 67n65 289–­91: 60n26 293–­94: 61n30 643–­48: 60n26 962–­65: 60n26 Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1178B: 78n109

Index Locorum 273 Parts of Animals 663B: 170n65 673A: 82 Poetics 1449A: 13n48 1460B: 78 Politics 1336B: 71–­72 Rhetoric 1390A: 80n121 1412A: 12n45 Arnobius 5.25–­26: 59n24 Artemidorus 4 pr.: 170n65 Athenaeus 1.14: 96n35 10.1: 98n47 14.2: 57n15 Athenagoras Embassy for the Christians 26: 221n110 Augustine City of God 2.7: 135n96 4.25: 140n122 Letters 91.5: 135 Aulus Gellius 18.2.1: 69n73 pseudo-­Aurelius Victor On Famous Roman Men 22: 172n74 Babrius 2: 187 59: 170n65 117: 187–­88 127: 183–­84 Basil of Caesarea Address to Young Men on Reading Greek Literature 4: 140n122

Caesar Civil Wars 3.65: 104n71 Callimachus Aetia F 21 Harder: 60n25 F 63 Harder: 61n30 Hymn to Artemis 159–­61: 98n47 Catullus 59.3–­4: 102n63 Chariton 2.3.5: 151n165 8.8.16: 151n165 Choricius 32.3.31: 64n48 Cicero Against Catiline 1.1: 112n109 1.6: 112n109 Laws 1.23: 163 2.37: 168n54 Letters to Atticus 1.16.13: 176n90 On Divination 2.39–­41: 199n17 On the Orator 2.255: 12n45 2.260: 12n45 2.276: 104n72 On the Nature of the Gods 1.39–­41: 170n63 1.42: 80n119 1.42–­49: 85n145 1.52: 183 1.55: 170n63 1.84: 177 2.7–­12: 199n17 2.33–­39: 173n80 2.59: 184n131 2.79–­165: 184n131 2.131: 184n131 2.154: 163 3.39: 167n50

274  Index Locorum 3.43–­52: 173n79 3.44: 170n63 Tusculan Disputations 3.16: 142n132 Clement of Alexandria Exhortation to the Greeks 2.20.2–­21.2: 59n24 2.33: 140n122 4.49: 140n122 4.57: 153n171 Stromata 1.21.137: 140n122 pseudo-­Clement of Rome Homilies 5.1–­16: 140n122 Cleomedes 2.1.499–­500: 60n26 Cornutus 13.3: 170n63 Demetrius On Style 170: 59n20 226: 40n64 Demosthenes 18.122: 63n39 pseudo-­Demosthenes 59.116: 61n31 Dio Cassius 63.13.1: 141n125 71.14: 184n134 Dio Chrysostom 1.37–­46: 156n5, 164n35 2.26: 156, 184n135 2.73–­78: 156n5 3.53: 187n145 4.85: 83n133 7.133–­37: 123 12.59: 83 12.60–­61: 84n144 12.62–­63: 83 12.74–­77: 83 12.78–­79: 84 12.83: 84 12.85: 84n142

13.35: 107 29.17: 139 30.26–­27: 163 31.14: 103 31.15: 101 32.2: 44n78 33.9: 64 33.12: 65n50 33.21–­22: 139 33.28: 107 36.22–­23: 163 36.29: 163 36.31: 163 36.41: 212n75 42.4–­5: 39n55 pseudo-­Dio Chrysostom 37.33: 133n88 Diodorus Siculus 5.4.7: 60n28 Diogenes Laërtius 6.101: 158n14 8.59: 211n71 Diogenes of Oenoanda F 19: 85 F 20: 85n145 F 20 II.4–­5: 164 NF 115 II.6–­8: 85 NF 126 IV.5–­7: 186 NF 127 IV.11–­F 20 I.7: 164 NF 143: 200n19 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 7.72.11: 62n38, 63n41, 68 pseudo-­Dionysius of Halicarnassus Rhetoric 2.2: 123 Euripides Bacchae 170–­369: 67 223–­25: 152n168 235–­38: 152n168 250: 67n62 272: 67n62 286: 67n62 314–­18: 152n168

Index Locorum 275 322: 67n62 379–­81: 67 439: 67n62 683–­88: 152n168 854: 67n62 912–­76: 67 1021: 67n62 1080–­81: 67n62 Cyclops 396–­408: 111n106 Heracles 523–­24: 217 Eusebius Life of Constantine 3.55.2–­5: 147n149 Eustathius 1.303.22 Stallbaum: 128n60 Galen Method of Medicine 13.15: 221n108 On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body 1.22: 12n46 3.16: 12n46 On Hippocrates’ ‘Epidemics’ 2.6.29: 27 Gospel of Matthew 27.51: 222 Heraclitus F 5 DK: 111n107 Herodotus 1.47: 203 1.55: 203n33 2.145–­46: 121n27 2.181: 150n160 4.94–­96: 169n55 4.105: 211 7.6: 206n51 9.11: 58–­59 Hesiod Theogony 214: 169n62 360: 169n62 535–­64: 39n57, 91n19, 172n74

Works and Days 109–­20: 70 135–­39: 99n50 336: 106n84 Hippolytus of Rome Refutation of All Heresies 4.28–­29: 206n50 Scriptores Historiae Augustae Verus 7.5: 69n73 Homer Iliad 1.5: 170n64 1.43: 184n129 1.423–­27: 96n35, 105n77, 182n117 1.528: 158n12 1.528–­611: 158n13 1.572–­94: 16 1.597–­600: 16, 76 1.598: 182n116 2.188–­206: 161 2.478: 83n135 4.48–­49: 110n101, 184n129 5.127–­28: 1n3 5.341: 110 9.524–­605: 105n77 14.205–­9: 124n45 14.294–­351: 76, 124 15.1–­33: 124 17.209: 158n12 20.231–­35: 136n100 Odyssey 8.86–­88: 128n61 8.292–­96: 127, 129n66 8.299: 127–­28 8.306–­69: 158n13 8.306–­14: 126 8.324–­29: 78n111, 78n113, 126n53, 127, 128n62 8.333–­43: 2n8, 78n113, 126n53, 127 8.343–­59: 128 8.360–­68: 126n53, 128 8.521–­22: 128n61 11.601–­3: 169n56 24.240: 84 24.249–­50: 84n142

276  Index Locorum Homeric Hymns To Aphrodite 202–­6: 136n100 To Demeter 200–­5: 59–­61 310–­12: 99n50 To Dionysus 14: 65n52 To Hermes 129–­33: 109n96 325–­97: 158n13 To Pan 37: 61n33 Ibycus F 289a: 136n100 Julian Caesars 3.6: 64n48 Epistles 80.50: 63n39 Justin Martyr Apology 1.14.5: 222n114 1.21: 140n122 1.25: 140 Juvenal 3.76–­77: 213n77 6.393–­95: 183n122 6.511–­91: 224n118 Lactantius Divine Institutes 1.9: 27–­28 4.3: 28 4.15: 28 epit. 10: 140n122 Libanius Orations 25.50: 46n98 64.113: 130n74, 140 Description of Hera 16.1–­3: 145–­46

What Words Would a Prostitute Say . . . 18.3: 146 Whether One Should Marry 1.4: 123 Livy Per. 11: 172n74 pseudo-­Longinus 9.7: 85n146 Longus 2.39.2–­4: 135n95 Lucian Alexander 1: 205–­6 8: 206 9: 207n53 10: 206 13–­14: 206 19–­21: 206 23: 206 26–­28: 206, 207n53 30–­37: 207n53 33: 209n59 36: 210n64 38: 203n34, 223 48: 174, 207n53 54–­57: 205, 207 60: 30n11, 207n53, 210n64 61: 207 Amber 6: 50n118 Anacharsis 19: 175n84 22: 15 23: 82n129 Apology for a Slip in Salutation 14: 175n84 Assembly of the Gods 1: 166 2: 167 3: 167–­68 4: 168, 177 6–­7: 169–­70 8: 136n99, 141n123, 170 9: 168–­69 10: 166n43, 169

Index Locorum 277 12: 168, 177, 187, 204 13: 159, 169 14: 168, 171 15: 171 16: 173n77 18: 172 19: 171, 203n34 Astrology 19: 51n122 Bacchus 5: 46n90 Charon 7: 1n3 12: 108n92 22: 110n103 Cock 3: 51n122 Defense of the Portraits 14: 43 20: 175n84 Demonax 2: 45n88 11: 61n29, 107n88 26: 48n110 37: 201n24 Dialogues of the Dead 10: 204n40, 214, 216 12: 156n5, 179 13: 179n104 15.3: 169n56 20.8: 216n89 24: 200n19 25.2: 179n104 Dialogues of the Gods 2: 36n43, 51n123, 116n4, 121n27 3: 116n4, 118–­19 5: 51n122, 160n20 6: 17, 137, 152 7: 137–­38 8: 116n4, 138 9: 138–­39 10: 36, 110n100, 116n4, 122n35, 136–­37 11: 17, 147n150 12: 116n4, 147n150

14: 116n4 15: 28 17: 51n122, 129, 132 18: 202 19: 132, 145n140 20: 122n35, 133, 147n151 21: 51n122, 116n4, 128–­29 22.1: 65n54 23: 51n122 24: 51n122 Dialogues of the Hetaerae 1.2: 224n118 2: 36n41, 61n30, 224n119 4.1: 224n118 5: 137n102 7.1: 61n30, 224n119 11.2: 224n119 14.3: 224n119 Dialogues of the Marine Gods 5: 140n117 6: 140n117 8.3: 136n101 11.1: 228n6 15.4: 137n107 Dipsades 9: 40n62 Double Indictment 1: 182, 184 2: 94n26, 104n71, 182, 186n140 3: 182 4: 181n112, 181n114 7: 181n114 9: 167n50 10: 61n33 12: 181 14: 181 22–­23: 181n114 24–­25: 181 27: 167n50 28: 37, 39–­40, 50 29: 35 33: 11n42, 40, 50 34: 38, 50 Downward Journey 22: 61n29

278  Index Locorum Dream 2–­9: 39n55 13–­14: 39n55 Eunuch 2: 63n39 Fisherman 1–­2: 41n68 4: 38n53 14: 15, 47, 80–­81 15: 46n90 19: 41n68 22: 41 25: 38n53, 39, 44–­45, 64, 80 26: 37n48, 38, 44, 49–­50 27: 11n41, 38–­39, 46n90 33: 81 36: 15 37: 81 51: 38n50 Harmonides 4: 45n88, 46n90 Hermotimus 1: 2 5: 2n4 20: 170 21: 2n4 22: 1 61: 2n4 75: 1–­2 76-­83: 1 81: 2n4 84: 23n101 86: 1 Herodotus 8: 45n88 Icaromenippus 1: 159–­60 2: 136n99 5–­10: 159 10: 23n101 14: 1n3 20–­21: 160 22: 160–­61 23: 161 24: 95

25–­26: 103–­4, 106 27: 98n47, 110, 136n99, 159n17, 167n50 28–­30: 161 28–­34: 158 31–­32: 93, 161, 167n47 33: 158, 161 34: 136n99, 161 Judgment of the Goddesses 1: 136n99 6: 136n99 9–­11: 152 Lexiphanes 2–­15: 40 10: 61n29 17: 46n97 Lovers of Lies 14–­15: 194 16: 30n11 27: 153n172 38: 204n40 Menippus 3: 51n122, 55n7, 125 4: 217 6: 215, 217 7: 215 8: 215–­16 9: 216 19: 216 21: 217 22: 215–­16 Mistaken Critic 5–­6: 23n101, 45n88 29: 48 32: 63n39 Nigrinus 26: 175n84 32: 170n67 34: 160n19 On Hirelings in Great Houses 27: 213n77 40: 213, 216n89 On Sacrifices 1–­2: 5–­9, 105–­6, 106n81, 175n88 7: 134n94, 147n151

Index Locorum 279 9: 110 10: 169n58 12–­13: 106nn79–­80, 111–­12 15: 5n20 On the Dance 21: 119n19 45: 152n170 55: 51n122 59: 135, 140n119 63: 51n122, 130 65: 41 76: 45n88 On the Syrian Goddess 1: 144 3: 145n142 4: 145 6: 145 9: 145 10: 144–­45 15: 147 16: 148 17–­18: 149 20–­21: 151–­52 24–­26: 149 27: 150 28: 133n88 47: 227 51: 150 60: 144 On Writing History 10: 28, 46n97 31: 69n72 44–­46: 50–­51 Peregrinus 1: 218 2: 11n41, 219 5: 219, 222n113 7: 223n117 7–­31: 218–­19 9–­10: 219 11: 219, 223n116 12: 220, 222n113 13: 30, 220, 222n114 14–­15: 220 16–­17: 221

18: 221–­22 20: 221 23: 221 25: 221 27–­28: 221, 223n116 31: 218 32: 222n114 33: 221 34: 223 37–­40: 218–­19, 221–­22 41: 222 43–­44: 219, 222n113 45: 223 Portraits 4: 153 9: 43 23: 41n66, 46n92 Prometheus 3: 51n122, 91 4: 91 7–­10: 51n122, 91 Runaways 1–­2: 104n71 13: 23n101 30: 161n25 Sale of Lives 13: 223n117 Saturnalia 2–­4: 69, 191 5: 69–­70 7: 70, 191 8: 70 11: 191 23: 43 36: 191 Self-­Defense 3: 43, 46 13: 174–­75 Ship 40: 174n83 Solecist 6: 160n19 Teacher of Rhetoric 11: 145n140 12: 41n66

280  Index Locorum 17: 46 20: 46 Timon 1: 10 4: 95n30 9: 95 1–­10: 109n94 Toxaris 2: 187n145 Tragic Zeus 2: 148n155 4: 190 6: 188, 196, 202 7–­12: 58n17, 188 8: 159n17, 189 12: 189 13: 95, 189n155 14: 188–­89 15: 95, 105n78 16–­17: 189 18: 94, 189, 203n34 19: 187n145 20: 55, 136n99, 202 21: 167n50, 189n153 22: 95–­96, 167n46 23: 55, 167n47 25: 187n145, 189 27–­28: 202 30–­31: 203 32: 98n47, 167n50, 189 36–­37: 96, 189–­90 38–­39: 173n80 43: 203 44: 63nn39–­40 45: 169n58 47: 30n11 52: 190 53: 186n140, 190 True Histories 1.7: 148 1.22–­24: 121 1.23: 110n103 1.29: 97n38 1.35: 100n55 1.42: 99

2.2: 99 2.3: 170n67 2.8: 122 2.11: 99–­100 2.18: 23n101, 122 2.19: 121–­22 2.20: 182n115 2.25–­26: 122, 145n140 2.28: 205 2.29: 121 2.35–­36: 121 Tyrannicide 19: 49n114 Uncultured Man 3: 146–­47 19: 65n54 You Are a Prometheus with Words 2–­3: 39, 46n91 7: 11n42, 39, 51n122 Zeuxis 1: 45 6: 153n172 12: 45 Zeus Refuted 1–­2: 185 7: 107n88, 185 8: 55n7, 185 9: 186 12: 198 13: 198, 201 14: 198 16–­17: 186 18: 186, 200 19: 186 pseudo-­Lucian Loves 14: 153n172 17: 153n172 Macrobius 1.7.36: 69n73 Marcus Aurelius 5.28: 40n60 Maximus of Tyre 5.2: 200n22

Index Locorum 281 5.5: 108 13.5: 200 13.8–­9: 200 17.4: 79 18.5: 79 26.1: 79 32.10: 74 Menander Dyscolus 438–­39: 111n108 449–­54: 106n84, 109 968: 64n47, 80n121 Epitrepontes 1084–­86: 183 1091: 183, 186n140 1094–­98: 183n121 Samia 589–­600: 135n95 Fragments F 264.1–­10 Sandbach: 106 Minucius Felix Octavius 23: 140n122 Moschus 162–­66: 137n107 Musonius Rufus 14.20–­32 Lutz: 123 Oenomaus of Gadara F 5.4–­5: 199 F 16.11: 203–­4 F 16.21: 201 F 16.22–­24: 201 F 16.25: 201 Origen Against Celsus 1.71: 222n114 2.32: 222n114 4.53: 38n51 8.37: 168n54 Orphic Fragments F 52 Kern: 59n24 Ovid Amores 1.5.25: 133n88

Ars Amatoria 1.633–­37: 123n37 Fasti 1.391: 118n13 1.393–­440: 119n19 6.321–­44: 119n19 6.345: 118n13 Metamorphoses 1.168–­252: 158n14 1.226–­31: 109n96 1.293–­332: 189n156 1.491: 202n29 1.733–­45: 228n6 4.189: 130n74 8.612–­727: 109n96 9.239–­61: 158n14 9.347–­48: 119n19 10.155–­61: 136n100 10.298–­518: 145n140 Pausanias 1.34.3: 204 5.15.10: 95n30 8.43.5: 184n134 9.39.5–­14: 204 Philemon F 43 Kock: 63n39 Philo of Alexandria Embassy to Gaius 11.77–­12.92: 156 Philodemus On the Gods III col. 13–­14: 168n54 Philogelos 62: 104n72 73: 104n72 187: 208n57 193: 104n72 201–­5: 208n57, 209 242: 103n66, 104 Philostratus Lives of the Sophists 523: 213n78 579–­80: 43 Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4.24: 204

282  Index Locorum Photius Library 128: 29–­30 Pindar Olympian Odes 1.40–­45: 136n100 10.105: 136n100 Plato Alcibiades 1.121E–­122A: 212 Apology 41C–­D: 184n130 Cratylus 406B–­D: 77 Euthyphro 6A–­D: 77 14B: 108 14E–­15A: 94, 108 Laws 637A–­B: 62n38, 71 657D–­E: 59n20 672B: 148n154 713D: 184n130 Meno 80A–­B: 211 Phaedrus 228A–­B: 43n74 Philebus 33B: 77n99 48C–­D: 13n48 Protagoras 318A: 160n19 321D: 160 322A–­D: 160 328D: 160n19 Republic 377D–­378B: 75 379A–­383C: 75 379C: 73n85, 183n121 381A–­E: 77 388D: 76n97 388E–­389A: 76, 79n117, 80n121, 80n123 389D–­E: 76 390A–­392A: 76

390C: 79n117 452B–­D: 76n97 457C: 122n31 617D–­E: 73n85, 183n121 Symposium 189C–­D: 184n130 190C: 96n34 192D–­E: 77 202E–­203A: 73n85 218C–­219D: 119n19 Timaeus 90A–­C: 73n85 Plautus Amphitryo 545: 68n71 861–­983: 68n71 Pseudolus 361: 102n63 Pliny Natural History 7.127: 153n171 33.111–­12: 68n67 36.20–­21: 153n171 Plutarch Advice to the Bride and Groom 143D–­E: 124 Amatorius 756C–­D: 159 758A: 184n132 770A: 124 Aristides 6: 178 Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander 853D: 78–­79 Demetrius 38: 149 How to Study Poetry 19D: 78 19F–­20A: 78 Isis and Osiris 361B: 72 On the Decline of Oracles 417C: 61n34, 72 435B: 111n106

Index Locorum 283 On the Delays of Divine Vengeance 548B–­568A: 183 On Superstition 164E–­171F: 6n22 169D: 57 170A–­C: 56, 105n77 The Oracles at Delphi No Longer Given in Verse 396C–­D: 202n31 397D: 202n31 Roman Questions 287D: 68n67 Romulus 28: 178 Sulla 30: 80n121 Table-­Talk 613A–­C: 40n64 711B–­C: 40n64 712B–­D: 79n114 726D: 80n121 To an Uneducated Ruler 780F–­781A: 156n5, 184n132, 184n135 Polemon Physiognomy 1.162: 213n78 Porphyry On Abstinence 2.11: 109n97 Quintilian 6.3.7: 13n48 Semonides 7.56 Campbell: 102n63 Semus of Delos BNJ 396 F 10: 57n15 Seneca Apocolocyntosis 3: 176n92 5: 176 6: 176n92 8.3: 176 9: 176 11.6: 177

On Providence 2.3–­4: 180n111 3.3: 180n111 3.12–­13: 186n138 4.11–­16: 180n111 5.8: 185n136 6.5: 180n111 Fragments F 46 Haase: 123 Sextus Empiricus Against the Mathematicians 1.49: 172 1.59.8: 63n39 1.133–­36: 172 1.138–­90: 173 1.162–­66: 187 1.179: 168n54 1.182–­90: 175 Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.12: 188n147 Sophocles F 420–­24 Radt: 170n64 Strabo 9.1.24: 60n25 15.1.72–­73: 221n109 Suetonius Julius Caesar 49: 68n68 51: 68 Nero 28.1: 141n125 Tatian Oration to the Greeks 8.4–­5: 202n29 10: 140 22: 131 34: 140n121, 153n171 Terence Eunuchus 491: 102n63 591: 135 Tertullian Apology 33: 68n70

284  Index Locorum Theodoretus Cure of the Greek Maladies 3.84: 60n26 Tibullus 1.5.53–­54: 102n63 Valerius Maximus 8.11.4: 153n171 Varro On Latin 6.68: 68n70 Vergil Aeneid 6.128–­45: 217n91 6.187–­211: 217n91 6.893–­900: 217

Xenophon Memorabilia 1.3.3: 106n84 4.3.6–­7: 184n130 Symposium 8.9: 10n36 Xenophanes F 11 DK: 75 F 15 DK: 75, 155 F 16 DK: 75 F 23–­26 DK: 75 Zenobius 4.80: 63n41

Index Rerum

acropolis, 159–­60 actors, 17, 40–­41, 66, 68, 81–­82, 213n77 Adonis, 132, 145, 147, 159n17 adultery, 25, 115, 123, 135, 139n113, 142, 146–­49, 219; of Ares and Aphrodite, 51, 74–­79, 116–­17, 122, 125–­134, 136–­ 37, 140, 143 Aelius Aristides, 23–­25, 73–­74, 86, 117, 139–­40, 142–­43, 151, 184, 230 Aeschylus, 53, 66, 181 Aesculapius. See Asclepius Aesop, 23n101, 170–­71, 181, 184, 208n60 aesthetics of excess, 26, 194–­95, 205–­8, 214–­18, 220, 222–­26, 233 aetiology, 19–­20, 59–­62, 70, 91–­92, 145, 150 afterlife. See underworld Agamemnon, 83–­84, 161, 200 aischrologia, 60–­63, 65–­66, 68–­74 Alexander of Abonuteichos, 193–­94, 196, 205–­9, 218–­20, 223–­26 Alexander III of Macedon, 156, 179, 221n109 allegory, 79, 85, 121n27, 141n128 ambrosia, 95–­96, 100, 110, 136, 182 Amphilochus, 204–­6, 213–­14, 216 aniconism, 57–­58 Anthesteria, 62, 99n50 anthropomorphism, 17–­19, 21, 24–­25, 54, 82–­87, 90, 113–­14, 129, 155, 157, 160, 164–­65, 177, 184, 201, 230; ethical, 75–­76; physical, 75, 85, 99 Antiochus I Soter, 149

Antiope, 137n106, 140 Antiphanes, 96n35, 136n100 Antoninus Pius, 175, 184, 222n112 Aphrodisias, 44, 47 Aphrodite, 10n36, 25, 51, 74–­79, 116–­18, 122–­34, 136–­37, 139–­40, 141, 143, 145–­47, 150–­51, 153–­54 Apollo, 57, 65n50, 108n92, 118–­19, 127–­29, 131–­33, 165, 172n76, 182, 195, 197–­99, 201–­5, 208 Apollonius of Tyana, 89, 213n78 aposiopesis, 133 apotheosis. See deification; emperor worship; ruler cult Apuleius, 23, 26, 196, 211–­13, 218, 224; Metamorphoses of, 141–­43, 144n136, 147n150, 151n165, 152n166, 152n170, 209n60, 212n73 Areopagus, 165, 181 Ares, 17n69, 51, 74–­79, 116–­17, 119n19, 122–­23, 125–­34, 136–­37, 140, 143, 145, 147n150 Arethas, 30, 39n56, 61 Aristides of Athens, 23, 131, 140 Aristophanes, 2, 15n60, 20–­21, 25, 35n37, 45n88, 53, 58, 63–­64, 73n86, 77–­80, 85, 92, 96, 101, 109n96, 117–­18, 139, 141, 158n14, 168n54; Birds of, 97–­100, 103; Clouds of, 122–­23, 135; Frogs of, 65–­66, 216 Aristotle, 13n48, 24, 38, 49–­50, 71–­72, 74, 78–­79, 82, 170n65 Artemis, 105–­6, 112, 123, 224 285

286  Index Rerum Asclepius, 56n9, 151, 167n50, 169–­70, 172–­73, 182 Asia Minor, 7n28, 23n101, 55, 180, 184, 205, 219 Assembly of the Gods, 25, 28, 157, 159, 165–­75, 177–­79, 187–­88, 204 astrology, 105, 194, 197, 208–­9 ataraxia (tranquillity), 93–­94, 191, 207 Atargatis, 143, 227n4 atheism, 10n37, 30n11, 31, 56–­57, 89, 94, 117n5, 183, 187, 196, 203n34 Athena, 81, 103, 107n88, 159, 170nn65–­66, 173 Athenaeus, 57–­58 Athens, 7n28, 53, 61n33, 62, 64, 66–­ 68, 69n73, 99, 165–­67, 180–­81, 189, 221n109 Atra-­Hasis, 99n50, 110n103 Atticism, 30, 46, 48 Attis, 133–­34, 147, 150, 159n17, 167n50, 189 Augustine, 135 Augustus, 176–­79, 221–­22 autocracy, 156, 171, 177 Babrius, 170n65, 183–­84, 187–­89, 192 Babylon, 214–­15 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 14n58, 61 Baubo, 59–­60 Beard, Mary, 11–­12, 15 Bellinger, Alfred, 36, 41 Bendlin, Andreas, 19n4, 209–­10 Branham, Robert Bracht, 32–­33, 129 Bremmer, Jan, 219–­20 Bruno, Giordano, 183 Bryson, 120–­21 Burkert, Walter, 87–­88, 126, 211 Byblos, 145–­46 Caligula, 156 cannibalism, 99n52 carmina triumphalia, 62, 68–­69 Caster, Marcel, 30–­31 Chaldaeans, 209n60, 215–­16 Chariton, 151

Christians, 23, 27–­30, 63n39, 90, 106n70, 116–­17, 131, 140–­43, 146, 151n165, 206n50, 211n68, 218–­23 Chrysippus, 38, 49–­50, 123 Cicero, 163, 177, 183 Cinyras, 122, 145 Cioffi, Rob, 152–­53 class. See inequality: social Claudius, 175–­78 Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), 7–­11 coins, 15, 44, 156, 175n84 Combabus, 149–­52 comedy, 9n32, 11, 19, 35–­36, 38, 40, 53, 60, 63–­64, 73, 80, 98n47, 109, 135, 188n151, 190; Middle, 136n100; New, 21, 64n48, 138n108; Old, 2, 15, 40, 65–­66, 73, 85, 118; Roman, 134–­35, 137, 139, 141 comic, definition of, 11–­12, 15, 18, 20, 23 conjugality: mentality of, 25, 114, 117, 134, 136, 138, 144, 148, 150–­54; “new”, 115–­16, 120–­25, 142, 154 Conybeare, Catherine, 62 costuming, 40, 63, 67–­68, 135, 152, 189, 194, 207, 215–­16, 218, 220, 222, 224–­ 25, 233 Croesus, 108n92, 198–­200, 202–­3, 206 Cronus, 69–­70, 75, 77, 158, 171, 184n130, 191 Cupid. See Eros Cybele, 55, 133n90, 211 Cyclops, 111–­12 Cynicism, 4, 33n32, 63, 105, 108, 122, 185–­88, 196, 198, 213–­14, 218, 220–­23 daimones (demigods), 72–­73, 123, 183n121, 221 Danaë, 135, 137n106 dance. See pantomime Dawkins, Richard, 183 declamation. See oratory deification, 98n47, 102n60, 151n162, 169n56, 174–­79, 222 deixis, 49–­50

Index Rerum 287 Delos, 57, 165 Delphi, 47n104, 57, 195, 197, 199, 202–­3, 205 democracy, 99n52 Democritus, 124, 223 Demonax, 107n88, 201n24 Demosthenes, 51 desire: erotic, 25, 76, 114–­54, 194, 228–­29 Destiny, 169–­70, 185–­86, 198, 201 dialogue, 3–­4, 15, 20, 24, 29, 32–­43, 51–­ 52, 129n64, 132n81; comic, 35, 38–­40, 80–­81; performance of, 35–­43 Dialogues of the Gods, 17, 25, 32, 36, 49, 116–­19, 128–­34, 136–­39, 142–­43, 202 Dio Chrysostom, 23–­24, 42, 52, 64–­65, 82–­87, 89, 100–1, 103, 106–­8, 114, 120, 125, 139, 142, 156–­57, 162–­66, 184, 187, 216, 230 Diogenes of Oenoanda, 23, 52, 85, 158, 162, 164, 186, 192n164 Diogenes the Cynic, 38–­39, 41, 44–­45, 49–­50, 63–­64, 67, 74, 76, 80–­81, 122, 169n56, 181, 215, 220 Dionysia, 63–­65, 68n66, 71n80, 81, 99, 224 Dionysus, 17n69, 59, 99, 118–­20, 129, 137, 148, 152, 156, 168, 172–­73, 177, 216; and laughter, 62–­68, 70–­71, 73–­ 74, 76–­77, 80–­82 Dioscuri, 123, 156 disability, 16, 126–­27, 176–­78, 182 divination, 99, 113, 172, 195, 197, 202n30, 207, 209–­10, 214, 224–­25, 230 divine assemblies, 25, 28, 155, 157–­79, 181, 188–­90 divine justice, 25, 91–­92, 157, 179–­92 divine punishment, 55–­56, 67, 147n150, 161–­62, 183–­87, 191, 198–­200 Dodds, Eric, 193–­94 Domitian, 140–­41 Double Indictment, 35, 37–­41, 50–­51, 181–­85 Downie, Janet, 139 drama, 19–­21, 29, 44, 46n98, 51, 54, 62–­ 65, 67, 81–­82, 97n38, 99, 208. See also comedy, tragedy dreams, 19, 149, 172, 217

Edmonds, Radcliffe, 197, 207, 210–­12 Egypt, 19n84, 83, 169, 218, 221–­23 ekphrasis, 129, 131 Elder Edda, 18 Eleusis, 59–­62, 66, 223 elites. See inequality emperor worship, 89, 141, 143, 155–­57, 172, 174–­79, 222 Endymion, 132–­33 epic, 2–­3, 17–­18, 20–­21, 35n37, 48n113, 51, 62, 83, 118n151, 128, 155, 158–­59; gods of, 24, 55, 74, 80, 82, 85–­86, 125, 184 Epicureanism, 2, 4, 21, 31, 33n32, 55, 63, 80n119, 85, 93–­96, 157–­58, 161–­62, 164, 167n48, 182–­83, 185–­86, 189–­91, 196, 207, 230 Epicurus, 182, 207 Epimetheus, 159–­60 epiphanies, 19, 85n146, 102n64, 152, 172 epistemicide, 7n25, 232 Erasmus, Desiderius, 29, 171n69 Eros, 17, 118, 122, 124, 131–­34, 137–­39, 141–­42, 147, 152–­54, 159, 169n60, 184n130, 194 Ethiopia, 96, 105, 182 ethnicity, 3n13, 7, 23, 98, 119, 144, 147n149, 159, 165–­69, 173, 176–­77, 189–­90, 194, 196, 213, 222, 232n9; and cultural identity, 20, 24, 28, 34, 84, 121, 143–­53 ēthopoeia (speech in character), 105, 146 eudaimonia (happiness), 182 euergetism, 22, 89, 180, 230 eunuchs, 144n136, 147–­52, 154 Eupolis, 63–­64, 66n60, 80 Euripides, 20, 124n44, 217; Bacchae of, 65, 67 Europa, 137nn106–­7, 145, 147 Eusebius, 198, 203 fable, 3, 23, 34, 52, 170–­71, 181, 183–­84, 187–­88, 192, 209n60, 231 Fate(s), 108, 180, 185–­86, 188–­91, 198–­ 201, 209

288  Index Rerum fathers, 75, 84, 118–­19, 124, 136, 148–­49, 156, 159, 166n42, 171n72, 179, 182, 194, 208–­9, 219–­20 festival, 5, 47, 57–­70, 72, 80–­81, 95, 99, 105, 161, 191, 221, 227. See also Anthesteria; Dionysia; Haloa; Saturnalia; Thesmophoria Fisherman, 15, 38–­42, 44–­45, 47, 49–­50, 63–­65, 80–­82 Fowler, Henry and Francis, 116, 118 Freidenberg, Olga, 18–­19 Freud, Sigmund, 12, 14–­15, 122n34, 225 Friedländer, Paul, 2, 17–­18, 128 Gaia, 124, 175 Galen, 12, 27–­28, 42, 221n108 Ganymede, 36, 110, 117, 136–­43, 151n162, 153, 170 gephyrismos, 60–­62, 66 Gilgamesh, 99n50, 110n103 gods: animallike, 83, 138, 168, 177, 228; beautiful, 119, 131, 133, 151–­52, 177; benevolent (see philanthrōpeia); depicted in caricature, 19, 102; as citizens, 25, 155–­65, 167, 169, 172, 174–­78; definition of, 165–­79; emotions of, 17–­18, 82, 130, 139–­40, 153, 185, 187; as good, 21, 71–­78, 82–­85, 140, 143, 154, 180, 184, 187, 190, 192, 200, 229–­30, 233; language of, 8–­9, 168, 176, 189n155; as moral examples, 2, 4, 21, 25, 71, 76–­77, 82–­ 85, 113–­17, 123–­25, 134–­36, 139–­40, 143, 154–­57, 163–­64, 179, 191, 229–­ 30; names of, 9–­10, 65, 83, 122–­23, 146, 165; as personifications, 167, 169–­70; as provident (see pronoia); reciprocity with, 100, 112, 114, 138–­ 39, 175; as rulers, 155–­57, 161–­64, 179, 182, 230; statues of, 26, 57–­58, 68, 82–­86, 103, 107, 145–­46, 152–­53, 174, 189, 194, 221, 227–­30 goēs (sorcerer), 26, 198–­99, 203–­6, 211–­ 12, 220–­26 Gordon, Richard, 180

Hadrian, 140–­41, 205 Halliwell, Stephen, 11, 13, 19, 54, 61–­62 Haloa, 59–­61 Helen, 122–­24, 145n140, 170n64 Helius, 103, 130, 182 henotheism, 151n165 Hera, 16, 19n84, 25, 76, 117, 123–­24, 136, 138, 140–­54, 172n76, 202–­3, 208, 210, 227–­29 Heracles, 17n69, 19n84, 27–­28, 123, 145n142, 148, 156, 167n50, 169–­70, 172, 176–­77, 189, 215–­17; gluttony of, 66, 98, 102–­3 Hercules. See Heracles Hermaphroditus, 118 Hermes, 10n36, 17, 19n84, 35–­36, 41, 78n113, 91, 109n96, 121n27, 127–­29, 132–­33, 136n100, 161, 166–­67, 173, 177, 181, 183, 187–­90, 202 Hermotimus, 1, 170 Herodotus, 58, 100n55, 143–­44, 150, 152, 199, 211 heroes, 18, 76, 88n3, 102n60, 131, 161, 204–­5, 213–­14 Hephaestus, 16–­17, 74–­79, 123, 125–­32, 136, 140, 146–­47, 158, 170n66, 178 Hesiod, 21n92, 75, 78, 125, 185; Theogony of, 91, 97; Works and Days of, 70 hetaerae. See prostitution heterosexuality, 115, 124n44, 134, 151n165, 153 Hierapolis, 143–­52, 227–­29 Hinduism, 18, 232 Homer, 2, 10–­11, 17–­18, 53, 75–­76, 78–­79, 83–­85, 110, 117, 125–­26, 140, 182, 185 homosexuality, 115, 120, 122n31, 124, 134, 136, 142, 153 Homeric Hymns, 20–­21, 59–­62, 67, 70, 165 Horace, 32n28 Huizinga, Johan, 13, 135 humor, 2–­5, 8–­20, 24, 29–­30, 32, 34, 52–­ 53, 65–­66, 77, 108–­9, 113, 143–­44, 192; open-­endedness of, 3–­4, 26, 90, 112,

Index Rerum 289 233; and sexuality, 117–­19, 122–­25, 135. See also laughter Iambe, 59–­60, 62, 67 iambic, 19, 63n42, 65, 118, 184n127 Icaromenippus, 93–­96, 103–­4, 110, 158–­ 62 Iliad, 16–­17, 19–­20, 74–­76, 80, 84–­85, 110, 116, 124–­25, 158–­59, 161–­62 (il)literacy, 3, 29, 34–­35, 51–­52, 231 (im)mortality, 55, 90, 100, 114, 139, 141–­ 42, 165, 167–­70, 179, 185, 187 imperial cult. See emperor worship imperial ideology (Roman), 4, 25, 141, 156, 164, 175, 178, 180, 184, 191 impiety, 30n11, 73, 96, 102–­3, 111–­12, 189n156 incest, 119, 122, 145n140 India, 218, 221–­22 inequality: social, 1–­2, 26, 40, 52, 106–­7, 115, 121–­22, 166, 180, 186, 191, 207–­9, 213–­15; criticism of, 4, 22–­24, 29, 34–­36, 42–­43, 69, 92, 113–­14, 154, 157, 192, 196, 224, 230–­33 Ino, 139–­40 inscriptions, 23, 44, 47, 52, 55–­57, 89, 103, 148, 155, 164, 169n60, 172, 180, 183, 186, 199n16, 209, 210n64, 225 interpretatio Graeca, 143, 166n43 invective, 19, 102n63, 140–­41, 146 Io, 137–­38, 228n6 Iphigeneia, 105–­6 Iris, 97 Isis, 144n136, 173 Islam, 8–­9, 18n80 Island of the Blessed, 23n101, 31, 99–­100, 121–­22 Janus, 176–­77 Jesus of Nazareth, 23, 30, 77n106, 196, 218, 220–­23, 226 jokes, 3, 11–­15, 23, 26, 34, 52, 59–­60, 64, 66, 68, 73n88, 77, 91, 104, 127, 208–­9, 224–­25. See also Philogelos Judaism, 18n80, 221n107

Julius Caesar, 68, 222 Juno. See Hera Jupiter. See Zeus Justin Martyr, 23, 140–­41, 222n114 Juvenal, 32n28 Lactantius, 27–­28 Laius, 198, 200–­201 Larson, Jennifer, 8–­9 laughter: of gods, 2, 16–­20, 24, 53–­60, 63–­68, 74–­82, 125–­29; not desacralizing, 2, 4, 20, 53, 86, 70, 232; and play, 58–­59; ritual, 20, 24, 58–­82, 86; theories of, 11–­16 laws, 71, 125, 142, 146, 157, 163, 179–­80, 186, 222; and courts, 35, 49–­50, 91, 168n54, 181–­85, 211–­13 Lebanon, Mt., 145–­47 Leopardi, Giacomo, 13–­14 Lesky, Albin, 33, 53, 85, 232 Leto, 56–­58, 60, 70, 202 Libanius, 123, 125, 140, 145–­46 Lightfoot, Jane, 143, 145–­46, 150 Longus, 115, 135–­36 Lovers of Lies, 194–­97, 207, 213, 220, 224 Lucian: as atheist, 30–­31, 89, 117n5; authorial masks of, 24, 28–­33, 37, 52, 196–­97, 205–­6, 218–­19, 226; characterization by, 3, 46, 105, 125, 137, 148, 151, 170, 190, 196, 207, 209; ethnic identity of, 3, 7, 31, 34–­40, 50, 143, 152, 181; first-­person narrators in, 3, 29, 31–­33, 37, 39, 45–­46, 52, 99, 122n31, 104–­5, 143–­52, 148, 174, 196, 199, 205–­10, 213, 218–­19, 221–­23, 226–­27; and intertextuality, 3, 6n22, 20–­24, 28, 93n23, 96–­100, 121n27, 159, 175–­76, 198; and intratextuality, 48n107, 132, 216; mixed audience of, 23–­24, 35–­36, 43–­52; as performer, 3, 24, 35–­43, 130, 226, 231; popularity of, 23–­24, 29–­30, 42, 116, 231; programmatic passages in, 2n5, 11n42, 24, 37–­40, 42, 50, 80, 158–­59, 182; reading audience of, 3, 23, 36n42, 40n61, 42–­

290  Index Rerum Lucian (continued) 43, 50n115; reception of, 3n16, 20, 29–­ 35; religious beliefs of, 4, 22, 26, 28–­35, 89, 104–­5, 114, 144, 196–­97, 210; as satirist, 3–­4, 19, 25, 28, 30, 32–­33, 46, 87, 112, 223, 226; writing style of, 24, 30, 48–­52, 153n172 Lucilius, 27–­28, 158 Lucius Verus, 43, 69, 122n33, 130, 153 Lydia, 108n92, 168, 198, 203 magic, 25–­26, 193–­226; charge of, 211–­ 13; definition of, 193–­97, 212–­13, 224, 218–­26; as nonnormative practice, 197, 204–­14, 222, 224–­26; professionals of, 194–­97, 208, 211, 214, 224–­26, 233; and socioeconomic status, 194–­97, 207–­9, 211–­13, 224–­25, 233 Marcus Aurelius, 69, 165–­66, 174, 184, 193, 207 marriage, 25, 115–­25, 129, 136, 138–­39, 141–­42, 145–­50, 153–­54, 225, 228 Mars. See Ares Marx, Karl, 33, 53, 85, 232 Maximus of Tyre, 23–­24, 52, 73–­74, 79, 86, 89, 108, 157n10, 195, 200–­1, 203, 209 Menander, 21, 78–­79, 106–­9, 183 Menippus, 31, 39n58, 93, 103–­4, 106, 110, 125, 158–­62, 167n50, 174n81, 175, 213–­18, 224–­25 Mercury. See Hermes metics, 159n17, 167 Meuli, Karl, 111 mime, 34, 130, 152n170 Mithras, 168, 172–­73, 189 Momus, 31–­32, 55, 95–­96, 159, 166–­73, 176–­78, 187, 189–­90, 202–­5, 208, 210, 233 monotheism, 10n37 Morgan, Teresa, 34 mothers, 57–­58, 132–­33, 166n42, 171n72, 173 multilingualism, 7–­9, 30, 46, 48, 168, 176, 189n155

Musonius Rufus, 120, 123, 125 mystery cult, 59–­61, 66–­67, 72, 152, 205, 211, 221, 223 myth, 9, 19n84, 27, 32, 39, 51, 77, 82, 112, 116–­20, 124, 133n90, 135–­36, 138–­39, 141, 145, 147–­48, 150, 159–­60, 186, 191, 227n4, 230 necromancy, 194, 216 Nero, 140–­41, 178 New Testament Apocrypha, 115, 151 Nongbri, Brent, 6–­8 novel, 85n146, 115, 117–­18, 120–­21, 134, 136–­37, 141–­42, 147n150, 151–­ 52, 153 nudity, 69, 126, 129, 131, 133, 152, 228n6 nymphs, 18 Odysseus, 84, 121, 124, 128, 161, 214–­15 Odyssey, 2, 20, 74–­75, 116, 122, 125–­26, 128–­29, 158 Oenomaus of Gadara, 23, 25, 186n142, 195, 198–­201, 203–­4, 208–­9 Olympia, 82, 95, 182, 221 Olympus, Mt., 16, 86, 94, 110, 133, 141–­ 42, 160, 170n65, 182, 195, 204, 221-­22 Omphale, 27–­28 oracles, 25, 57–­58, 102n64, 172n74, 182, 186n142, 193n2, 195, 197–­210, 214–­ 15, 217, 219, 221, 224–­25; testing of, 198, 203, 207 oratory, 3, 34, 40, 90, 117, 123, 130, 145–­47, 192, 213n77, 222n114, 231; occasions for, 47–­48; performance of, 37, 42–­49, 52; venues for, 44, 47 Orpheus, 215 Osgood, Josiah, 142 Ovid, 11n39, 19, 109n96, 118, 120, 130n71, 147n150, 189n156 paideia (education), 23–­24, 28, 43–­46, 49, 51–­52, 147n149, 192, 194, 207–­8, 231 Palestine, 218–­19, 223 Pan, 36n43, 61n33, 121n27, 135n95, 167–­68

Index Rerum 291 pantomime, 3, 23, 34, 41, 130–­31, 135, 140, 152n170, 231 papyri, 36n42, 130n71, 194, 225 Paris, 124; judgment of, 152–­53, 170n64 Parmeniscus, 57–­58 parody, 19, 112, 117n5, 157–­58, 197n9 parrhēsia (free speaking), 63, 156, 170–­71 Paul, the apostle, 115, 120, 151, 222 pederasty, 120, 134, 136–­37, 140–­42, 147n151, 219 Penelope, 121, 124 Pentheus, 67, 152n168 Peregrinus, 104n71, 193–­94, 196, 205, 213n78, 218–­26 Peripatetics, 160–­61 Persephone, 59–­60 Persia, 212, 215, 217, 221n109 persona, 32–­33, 51, 112 Petropoulou, Maria-­Zoe, 89 phalli, 63, 148 Pheidias, 82–­84 philanthrōpia (divine benevolence), 21, 82–­83, 86, 113, 117, 136, 154, 156, 184–­85, 199, 229–­31 Philip II of Macedon, 156, 179 Philo of Alexandria, 156 philogelōs (laughter-­loving), 64, 76, 80 Philogelos, the jokebook, 23n101, 26, 104, 208–­9, 224 philosophy, 1–­2, 12, 25–­27, 29, 33–­34, 38, 41, 45, 52–­53, 55, 63, 70, 81–­82, 90, 93, 96, 124, 153, 158–­62, 169, 173, 181–­82, 185, 210–­14, 216–­24; Hellenistic, 21, 82; imperial, 2, 4, 21–­23, 82, 85–­86, 161–­62, 173n80, 179n105, 181, 188n147, 192–­200, 230. See also Cynicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, Skepticism, Stoicism Philostratus, 42–­43, 204 Phoenicians, 145, 168 Plato, 13n48, 20–­21, 24, 40, 96n34, 135n96, 148n154, 159–­60, 184, 186, 211–­12, 230; Laws of, 71–­72; as Lucianic character, 38, 49; Republic of, 75–­82; Euthyphro of, 94, 101, 108

Platonism, 32–­33, 82, 86, 179, 184, 218n99; middle, 2, 4, 21–­22, 175, 184, 186n143, 180, 199–­201, 229 Plutarch, 6n22, 23–­24, 52, 56–­58, 60, 70, 72–­74, 78–­80, 86, 89, 159, 178, 183–­84, 202n31, 205; on marriage, 115, 120, 123–­25, 134, 139, 142, 149 polis (city-­state), 1, 7–­8, 46–­47, 52, 71–­72, 77, 79, 89, 97, 99, 211, 222; of the gods, 167–­79; shared by gods and men (kosmopolis), 155–­66, 173, 188, 190 polytheism, 17, 30, 53, 80n18, 90n13, 102n64, 172n74, 173, 221n107, 232n9 Pompeii, 19, 118, 130n71 popular culture, 3–­4, 13, 23, 34–­35, 116, 231 Poseidon, 17n69, 81, 98–­99, 128, 136n101, 139, 170nn65–­66, 189 prayer, 5, 8–­10, 103–­4, 106, 108, 118, 184–­85, 224 Priapus, 15, 118–­19, 129 prolalia (introductory speech), 31n16, 48, 216 Prometheus, 39, 51, 91–­92, 97, 112–­13, 159–­61, 170n65, 172 pronoia (providence), 21, 33–­34, 55, 83, 85, 93–­96, 142n131, 154, 162, 175, 179–­80, 182–­86, 188–­92, 195, 199–­203, 209–­10, 229–­30; of emperors, 156–­57, 174–­75, 178 prophecy. See divination; oracles prostitution, 25, 61, 121, 123, 131, 137n102, 145–­47, 194, 196, 224 Psyche, 141–­42, 147n150, 151n162, 151n165 Pythagoras, 38, 49, 120 Pythia, 57–­58, 224 rape. See sexual violence religion: belief and, 5–­11, 86, 177, 203n34, 229; changes in, 172n74, 193, 225; definition of, 5–­11, 210–­13; experience of, 9–­11, 172n74, 193; inconsistencies in, 9–­11; place in, 165; polis-­model of, 7–­8; practices of,

292  Index Rerum religion (continued) 5–­11, 73, 82, 86, 88–­114, 155, 171–­72, 176, 193–­226; purity in, 103; second century CE decline of, 2–­3, 53, 88–­89, 193. See also gods Rhea, 133–­34, 147–­48, 150 Richlin, Amy, 15, 137 ritual. See festival; laughter: ritual; religion: practices in; sacrifice Romans, 3, 6–­7, 10n37, 12, 15, 19–­20, 24, 30, 34, 68–­70, 104n71, 164–­65, 173, 175–­79, 207n53, 213, 232 Rome, 19, 68, 84, 169n60, 172n74, 213, 221 Rosen, Ralph, 65 ruler cult (Hellenistic), 174n83, 179 Sabazius, 167n50, 168n54 sacrifice, 5, 7n25, 9, 22, 25, 30, 55, 58, 68, 87–­114, 172, 177, 215, 228; criticism of, 89–­90, 92–­93, 98–­101, 109–­14; entrails of, 99, 102, 109, 111, 113; function of, 88–­90, 96, 100–­2, 108–­9, 112–­14, 194; human, 99n52, 105–­6; mechanics of, 101–­12; smoke of, 93, 95, 103–­4, 109–­10, 139n113; strike of, 92–­101, 104, 113 Sacrifices, On, 5–­8, 104–­6, 110–­12 satire, 3, 19, 32–­33, 43, 46, 90, 112, 158, 205, 219 Saturnalia, 7n25, 62, 69–­70, 191; and Kronia, 69n73 satyr play, 63–­64, 170n64 satyrs, 12n46, 61n33, 137, 168 scholia, 2, 16n68, 24, 28–­31, 39n56, 52, 61, 63n39, 66n58, 98n47, 127n59, 218n98 science, 7, 183, 210–­11 Second Sophistic, 3, 20, 31, 42–­45, 48, 175 Selene (Moon), 121, 132–­34, 160–­ 61 Seleucus I, 149–­50 Seneca, 123, 158; Apocolocyntosis of, 19, 25, 157, 175–­79

Sextus Empiricus, 23, 75, 172–­73, 187, 192n164 sexuality. See desire: erotic; heterosexuality; homosexuality sexual violence, 60, 117–­19, 134–­43, 153 Shintō, 18–­20, 232 Skepticism, 4, 33n32, 173, 175, 188n147 slavery, 27, 61n30, 66, 69–­70, 111n105, 111n108, 136–­37, 142, 169, 176, 185, 187, 216 Smith, Jonathan Z., 210–­11 socioeconomic status. See inequality: social Socrates, 186, 220, 222, 226; in Plato, 43n74, 75–­82, 94, 108, 119n19, 184n130, 211–­12, 230; in Xenophon, 106n84, 184n130, 199 Solon, 82n129, 108n92 sophists, 41–­43, 211, 213, 219–­20, 222, 226 sōphrosunē (self-­restraint), 121n28, 136, 142 sōritēs-­argument, 173–­75 speeches. See oratory stepmothers, 148, 154 Stoicism, 1–­2, 4, 21–­22, 25, 33–­34, 82–­84, 86, 105, 155–­58, 169–­70, 172–­73, 175, 179–­80, 182–­85, 188–­90, 229; imperial, 161–­66, 184, 199–­203 Stratonice, 148–­51 Structuralism, 88, 109n96 Suda, 60n25, 62n38 Swain, Simon, 120–­21 symposium, 81n125, 91, 118 Syria, 3n13, 7n25, 31, 69n73, 143–­54, 168, 220, 227–­29 Syrian Goddess, On the, 22, 25–­26, 117, 143–­54, 227–­29, 233 Tacoma, Rens, 178 Tatian, 23, 131, 140 Teiresias, 67, 214–­18 temple robbers, 168, 186–­87, 191 Terence, 134–­35, 139, 141 Thecla, 115, 151

Index Rerum 293 theodicy, 21, 185, 187–­88; of good fortune, 22, 25, 33, 86, 92, 114, 117, 154, 157, 180, 183n20, 195, 229, 231 theology, 4–­5, 7, 26, 35n37, 91, 157–­58, 179, 182–­83, 195, 233; philosophical, 9, 14–­15, 22, 24–­25, 33n32, 54, 75n94, 77n106, 86, 184, 188, 192, 201–­2, 228–­31 theomachy, 161, 189n156 Thesmophoria, 59–­61, 63, 98, 224 Thetis, 16, 158, 170n64 tragedy, 21, 66–­67, 82n129, 91, 124, 188n151 Tragic Zeus, 22, 25, 55, 92–­96, 102, 106, 112, 159, 174, 178, 180, 185, 187–­90, 202–­4, 228, 233 Trajan, 69, 156 Trojan war, 16, 103n68, 105, 170n64 Trophonius, 57n15, 204–­5, 213–­17, 224 Tyche, 169–­70, 173n77, 216, 218 underworld, 13, 23n101, 31, 65–­66, 99–­ 100, 104, 121–­22, 156n5, 169n56, 177, 179, 181, 186, 194, 196, 199, 213–­17 Uranus, 70n79, 75, 124 Varro, 68n70, 158 vase painting, 19, 102–­3, 108n111, 169n61, 228n6 Venus. See Aphrodite Vergil, 147n150, 217 Veyne, Paul, 115–­16, 120

virtue, 1, 4, 22, 25, 84, 113–­14, 132, 142, 155–­56, 160, 164–­65, 180, 184, 187, 191–­92, 200, 229–­30; as condition for deification, 178–­79; personification of, 169–­70, 178 visual art, 19–­20, 34, 39, 44, 51, 54, 65n52, 78, 88n3, 102, 120n23, 130–­31. (See also coins; gods: as statues; vase painting; wall painting) Vout, Caroline, 141 Vulcan. See Hephaestus wall painting, 19, 130, 140n118 Wallace, David Foster, 10–­11 Weber, Max, 22, 33, 92, 180, 229–­33 Wendt, Heidi, 6 Xenophanes, 24, 55, 75–­76, 78–­80, 82, 85, 126, 155, 230 Xenophon, 106n84, 184n130, 199 Zeno of Citium, 172 Zeus, 9–­10, 16–­17, 26, 30, 36, 39, 51, 55, 63, 69–­70, 75–­77, 82–­84, 126, 156–­64, 166–­73, 176–­77, 180–­91, 197–­204, 227–­30, 233; as Ammon, 179; and sacrifice, 91–­98, 102–­10; sexuality of, 117, 123–­24, 126, 133–­43, 145, 147–­48, 151–­53, 228 Zeus Refuted, 107–­8, 180, 185–­90, 197–­ 202 Zoroastrians, 212n75, 215–­16