THIS is the longest of Lucian’s personal attacks on an individual, and it may be the latest of his datable works. It is a deeply hostile account of Alexander of Abonoteichus, a self-styled prophet and mouthpiece of the snake-god Glycon, who is alleged to be a reincarnation of the healing god Asclepius. His home town Abonoteichus (later Ionopolis, now Ineboli) was on the southern shore of the Black Sea, in the area called Paphlagonia, which was part of the Roman province of Bithynia and Pontus, but he acquired enormous prestige throughout all the eastern Roman empire, and his influence extended through his son-in-law Rutilianus even to the court of Rome. Whether he really was the master of fraud, deceit, and chicanery which Lucian portrays is impossible to say, but this was an age in which oracles were extremely popular in all levels of society, and no doubt a great deal of dishonest exploitation occurred at some shrines. Lucian’s motive for writing the attack is allegedly a request that he do so from his friend, the Epicurean Celsus, to whom the work is addressed and who had himself written a treatise against sorcerers (21). This man is generally agreed not to be identified with Origen’s anti-Christian opponent, who was a Platonist; but however that may be it is this friend’s Epicurean sympathies which account largely for the strength of Lucian’s venom against Alexander, who hated the Epicureans, and the piece ends with a striking eulogy of Epicurus himself.
The cult of Glycon was quite widespread: his image and name are represented on coins from the second and third centuries, and there is supporting epigraphic evidence as well. (See C. P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian, 138.)
The work must be dated after 180, the year Marcus Aurelius died, as he is referred to as already dead (48).
My dear Celsus, you probably think it a small and trivial request of yours that I should record in a book and send to you the life of Alexander, the quack from Abonoteichus, including his daring schemes and his chicaneries. But in fact, if one were to deal with every detail carefully, it would be no less a task than to report the deeds of Alexander, the son of Philip. Our man was as great a villain as the other was a hero. Still, if you are prepared to read it indulgently and to supply any deficiencies in my narrative, I will shoulder the task for you, and try to clean up that Augean stable,* if not completely, at least to the best of my ability, bringing a few basketfuls from which you can work out how much was all the untold amount of muck that three thousand cattle could have produced over many years.
1
Actually, I feel ashamed for both of us, you and me—you for wanting an utter scoundrel to be commemorated in memory and writing, and me for exerting myself to record the activities of a man who doesn’t deserve to have cultivated people read about him, but to have some huge and crowded amphitheatre watch him being torn apart by apes and foxes. But if anyone reproaches us for this, we shall be able to quote a precedent, namely Arrian,* the pupil of Epictetus. A Roman of great distinction and a devotee of culture all his life, he incurred the same charge, and so his defence can serve for us too. You see, he decided to write the life of Tillorobus the brigand. But we shall be commemorating a much more savage brigand, since his plunderings took place not in woods and mountains but in cities; and he ravaged not just Mysia and Mount Ida, and despoiled not only a few of the more deserted areas of Asia, but you could say he filled the whole Roman Empire with his brigandage.
2
First, I’ll sketch out in words for you the best likeness I can make of him, though I’m not very good at descriptions. To give you a picture of his physical appearance, he was tall and good-looking, really godlike, with a fair complexion, a beard which was not very thick, hair partly natural and partly false, but so well matched that most people couldn’t tell the difference. His eyes flashed like one possessed, while his voice was very clear and pleasant. In short, with none of these details could you find fault.
3
So much for his outward appearance. But as for his soul and his mind—O Heracles, Averter of Evil, O Zeus, the Protector, O Dioscuri, our Saviours, may it be my fate to encounter any enemy, public or private, but never such a man as that! For in intelligence, sagacity, and shrewdness he was far ahead of everyone; and as for an enquiring mind, a readiness to learn, memory, and a natural capacity for knowledge—every single one of these qualities he had in excess for every occasion. But he used them for the worst purposes, and, equipped with noble instruments, he lost no time in becoming the most accomplished of those who have been notorious for wickedness, surpassing the Cercopes, surpassing Eurybatus or Phrynondas or Aristodemus or Sostratus.* He himself once wrote to his son-in-law Rutilianus,* and (with remarkable modesty) claimed to resemble Pythagoras. But, saving his presence, if Pythagoras, wise and divinely gifted as he was, had been the man’s contemporary, I’m quite sure he would have seemed a child in comparison. And, by the Graces, do not suppose that I mean this as an insult to Pythagoras, or that I am trying to compare them for their achievements. On the contrary, if you brought together all the worst and most slanderous criticisms which have been made of Pythagoras (which I personally cannot believe to be true), they would add up to just a tiny fraction of Alexander’s rascality. In short, I ask you to imagine and carefully picture the most complex psychological temperament, consisting of lying, perjury, and malice, a temperament which is unscrupulous, daring, reckless, energetic in forwarding its own schemes, persuasive, plausible, making a pretence of virtue, and with an appearance totally opposite to its real purpose. Indeed, no one who met him for the first time failed to go away with the impression that he was the worthiest and most honest of men, and the most artless and unaffected as well. In addition to all this he had the character of a high achiever and of one who designed nothing petty, but always had his mind set on the highest things.
4
When he was still a lad and extremely good looking, as you could judge from his appearance later and also learn from those who gave descriptions of him, he sold his favours freely and went with anyone who would pay for his company. Among others he had a lover who was a quack, the type who offer magic spells and marvellous incantations, charms for love affairs, afflictions for your enemies, discoveries of buried treasure, and inheritances to estates. This man saw that he was a talented lad and very well suited to assist him in his dealings, and was just as enamoured of his own villainy as he himself was of the boy’s beauty. So he trained him well, and made continual use of him as his assistant, servant, and attendant. He himself, so he claimed, was a public doctor, but, to quote Homer on the wife of Thon, the Egyptian, he knew
5
Many a drug compounded for good and many for ill.*
All of this Alexander inherited as his heir. That teacher and lover of his came from Tyana by birth; he had been one of the followers of the famous Apollonius of Tyana* and was familiar with all his pretentiousness. So you see how the man I am describing had spent his time.
But just when Alexander’s beard was beginning to fill out, the death of the Tyanean put him into a difficult situation, as he was now also losing his youthful bloom by which he could make a living. He therefore gave up any thoughts of trivial projects, and joined forces with a Byzantine chorus-writer, one of those who enter for public contests. This man—I think he was nicknamed Cocconas*—was a much more disgusting character, and they travelled around, practising witchcraft and quackery, and fleecing the thick-headed, as charlatans usually refer to the public. Well, among these they came across a rich Macedonian woman, who was past her prime but still wanting to be attractive, and they furnished their needs at her expense and accompanied her from Bithynia to Macedonia. She came from Pella, which had once been a prosperous place in the time of the Macedonian kings, but was now unimportant and very depopulated. There they saw huge snakes, which were quite tame and domesticated, so that they were reared by women, slept with children, put up with being trodden on, didn’t object to being squeezed, and were suckled just like babies. These creatures abound in the area, which may account for the old story which was widely told of Olympias:* I imagine that one such snake slept in her bed while she was pregnant with Alexander. So they bought the finest one of these reptiles for a few obols, and, as Thucydides says, the war begins here.*
6 7
Given two such scoundrels, greatly daring, ready and eager for wickedness, and combining their forces, they easily perceived that human life is at the mercy of the two great tyrannies of hope and fear, and that anyone who could exploit both of them would very quickly get rich. For they saw that both he who fears and he who hopes regard foreknowledge as extremely necessary as well as extremely desirable, and that for this reason Delphi and Clarus* and Branchidae* long ago became rich and famous, because men were always visiting their shrines owing to the aforementioned tyrants, hope and fear, and seeking to learn about the future in advance with sacrifices of hecatombs and offerings of gold ingots. With much twisting and turning between the two of them, they formed a scheme to set up an oracular shrine, hoping, if it succeeded, that they would speedily become rich and prosperous. Thus indeed it turned out, better than their first expectations and beyond their hopes.
8
Next they began to consider, first about the place, secondly how to begin and how to organize the venture. Cocconas considered Chalcedon a suitable and convenient site, being near to Thrace and Bithynia, and not far from Asia and Galatia and all the inland peoples. But Alexander took a different view, preferring his own region, and saying quite rightly that to organize such a business they needed a host population of the thick-headed and simple-minded. Such were the Paphlagonians, he said, who lived beyond Abonoteichus: most of them were superstitious and simple, and you only have to appear among them followed by someone playing the pipe or tambourine or cymbals, and telling fortunes with a sieve (as they say),* and at once they are all gaping and staring at you as if you were a heavenly being.
9
They had a bit of a dispute about this, but in the end Alexander got his way; and going to Chalcedon, which nevertheless seemed to them to have some advantages, they buried bronze tablets in the temple of Apollo, the oldest one there, which stated that Asclepius and his father Apollo would very soon be moving to Pontus and settling in Abonoteichus. The opportune discovery of these tablets caused this story to spread easily all around Bithynia and Pontus, and first and foremost to Abonoteichus. Indeed, the people there at once voted to build a temple and lost no time digging the foundations. At that point Cocconas stayed in Chalcedon composing oracles which were ambiguous, doubtful, and misleading; and not long afterwards he died, bitten, I believe, by a viper.
10
Alexander was sent in first, with his hair now grown long and falling in ringlets, wearing a purple and white tunic, covered by a white cloak, and carrying a scimitar à la Perseus, from whom he traced his descent through his mother. And those wretched Paphlagonians, though they knew that both his parents were humble nonentities, believed the oracle that said:
11
Here you can see a descendant of Perseus, dear unto Phoebus:
Godlike Alexander, who partakes of the blood of the Healer.
So it seems that Podalirius* the Healer was so lustful and mad on women that he came rampaging for Alexander’s mother all the way from Tricca to Paphlagonia.
By this time there was another oracle, allegedly a former prophecy by the Sibyl:
By the shore of the Euxine Sea and close to Sinope
Shall appear by a Tower, in the time of the Romans, a prophet.
For his name see the first unit followed by thirty,
Then five more units, then twenty times three:
Four elements matching the name of a noble protector.*
So, coming into his country after a long absence and with all this ceremony and parade, Alexander became the centre of attention and admiration, as he pretended to have periodical fits of madness together with foaming of the mouth. He easily contrived this by chewing the root of soapwort, the herb used by dyers; but the sight of the foam filled the people with superstitious awe. They had also long before procured and fitted out a snake’s head made of linen: it had a slightly human look to it, and was painted to look completely lifelike. Its mouth opened and closed by means of horse hairs, and the tongue, black and forked like a snake’s, would shoot out, also controlled by hairs. They also had the snake from Pella in readiness, being looked after at home, which was due to appear at the right time and act with them in their drama, or rather to play the leading role.
12
When it was time to make a start, he thought up the following device. He went at night to the foundations of the temple which were just being dug, and where water had collected, either issuing from the ground there or falling from the sky, and there he placed a goose’s egg, already blown, and now containing a new-born snake. After burying it deep in the mud he went away again. At dawn he ran into the market place, wearing nothing except a gilded loin-cloth, carrying his scimitar, and shaking his hair wildly like the frenzied followers of the Great Mother.* Climbing onto a high altar he addressed the people, and congratulated the city because it was immediately going to receive the god in visible form. His audience—for virtually the whole city had come running up, including women, old men, and children—were astounded, uttered prayers, and prostrated themselves. He uttered some meaningless words, sounding like Hebrew or Phoenician, which dazed the people who didn’t know what he was saying, except for his constant mentioning of the names Apollo and Asclepius. Then he raced off to the future temple, and when he got to the excavation and the prearranged source of the oracle, he stepped into the water, sang hymns to Asclepius and Apollo in a very loud voice, and appealed to the god to come bringing good fortune to the city. Then he requested a saucer, and when someone gave him one he neatly dipped it underneath, and drew up together with water and mud the egg in which he had enclosed the god, having plugged the hole with sealing-wax and white lead. Taking it into his hands he announced that he was now holding Asclepius. They stared fixedly to see what might happen, being already astonished at the discovery of the egg in the water. And when he broke it and took the young snake into his hand, and the bystanders saw it moving about and twining round his fingers, they immediately shouted aloud, welcomed the god, congratulated their city, and proceeded each one to indulge in a surfeit of prayers, begging him for treasures, wealth, health, and all the other blessings. But Alexander rushed back home, carrying with him the new-born Asclepius,
13 14
Twice born when other men are born but once,*
his mother certainly not being Coronis, nor even a crow,* but a goose! All the people followed him, everyone in a frenzy and crazy with hopes.
For some days he stayed at home, hoping, correctly as it turned out, that as soon as the story got around, large numbers of Paphlagonians would come rushing up. When the city was full to bursting with people, all of them already deprived of their minds and their senses, in no way resembling bread-eating men, and differing from cattle only in their shape, he sat himself on a couch in a small chamber, dressed in truly godlike apparel, and clasped to his breast the Asclepius from Pella, which as I said was a very large and fine looking specimen. He coiled it all round his neck, letting the tail hang down, as it was long enough to sweep over his lap and trail part of its length on the ground, and he kept only the head hidden under his arm (the snake submitted to any treatment), showing the linen head beside his own beard, as if it was part of the snake that was clearly visible.
15
Now, please picture a small room, not brightly lit nor letting in too much daylight, and a motley crowd of humanity, agitated, excited in advance, buoyed up with hopes. When they went in, the thing naturally seemed a miracle to them—that a tiny little snake should in a few days become such a great serpent, and what’s more with a human face and so docile. They were immediately pushed towards the exit, and before they could get a close look they were crowded out by the steady stream of those coming in, as another door had been opened in the opposite wall to form an exit. The story goes that this was what the Macedonians did in Babylon when Alexander was ill there: his condition was critical, and the people surrounded the palace hoping to see him and to say goodbye. This exhibition, we are told, the blackguard gave not just once but many times, especially if any rich men arrived as fresh prey.
16
To tell the truth, my dear Celsus, in these circumstances we can forgive those people of Paphlagonia and Pontus, being stolid and uneducated folk, if they were completely deceived when they touched the snake, for Alexander even let them do this if they wanted: after all it was in semi-darkness that they were seeing its so-called head opening and shutting its mouth. Indeed, it would have taken a Democritus* or Epicurus himself or Metrodorus,* or someone else with a mind proof as adamant against such things, to be sceptical about this device and to guess the truth, and even if he couldn’t work out the mechanism, at least to be convinced in advance that though the method of the fraud eluded him, the whole business was a deception which could never happen.
17
Well, bit by bit Bithynia, Galatia, and Thrace came streaming in, as everyone who took the news around probably reported that he had seen the god being born, and later on touched him, when he had in a short time grown very large, and had a human-looking face. Paintings then followed, and images and statues, some of bronze and some of silver, and of course a name was given to the god. He was called Glycon in obedience to a divine command given in verse:
18
Lo, I am Glycon, grandson to Zeus, and a light unto mortals.
When the time came to fulfil the object of all their scheming, that is, to deliver oracles on request and to make prophecies, he took his cue from Amphilochus in Cilicia. After the death and disappearance of his father Amphiaraus* at Thebes, Amphilochus was driven from his country and went to Cilicia; which turned out to be a good move, as he too set up as a prophet among the Cilicians, charging two obols for each prediction. Well, taking his cue from him, Alexander proclaimed to all comers that the god would be delivering oracles on a day he stated in advance. He instructed everyone to put down on paper whatever he wanted and particularly wished to learn, to tie it up, and to seal it with wax or clay or the like. Then he himself took the scrolls, and went into the sanctuary, for by now the temple had been built and the stage was set. His plan was to summon the petitioners in order through the herald and the attendant priest, and having heard the god’s reply in each case, to hand back the scroll, sealed as before and with the answer written on it, since the god gave detailed replies to everyone’s question.
19
Now the trick was obvious and easily seen through by a man like yourself, and if it isn’t presumptuous to say so, like me; but to those drivelling idiots it was an almost incredible prodigy. He worked out various ways of undoing the seals so as to read all the questions and give them appropriate answers. Then he rolled up and resealed the scrolls, and handed them back to the utter astonishment of the recipients, whose constant reaction was: ‘How on earth did he know the questions I gave him so carefully fastened up with seals difficult to counterfeit, unless there really was a god who knows everything?’
20
‘So what ways did he work it out?’ you may well ask. Listen, then, 21 so you’ll be able to expose such goings-on. His first method, my dear Celsus, was to heat a needle and use it to melt through the wax under the seal so as to remove it; then after reading the question, he warmed up the wax again with the needle, both the wax under the thread and that which held the seal itself, and so easily stuck it together again. Another method was to use what they call collyrium, compounded of Bruttian pitch,* asphalt, powdered crystal, wax, and mastic. Moulding the collyrium from all these ingredients and warming it in a flame, he moistened the seal with saliva and pressed it onto the clay, thereby taking an impression of it. Then, as the clay hardened rapidly, he easily opened and read the contents, after which by applying the wax he produced a seal which was exactly like the original one, just as if he had used a gemstone. And just listen to this third device. He made a paste by mixing gypsum with the glue with which they glue books, and used this to take the impression by applying it while still wet to the seal and removing it when it dried, as it quickly did, becoming harder than horn or even iron. There are several other devices for achieving this, but I need not mention them all in case it seems in bad taste, especially as you yourself have produced sufficient examples, and many more than mine, in your writings against sorcerers, excellent and extremely useful books which successfully instil commonsense in their readers.
21
He proceeded then to deliver oracles and prophecies, in which he showed much shrewdness in his combination of guesswork and invention. Some of his replies were ambiguous and riddling; others were completely unintelligible: that too was his idea of the oracular technique. Some people he encouraged or discouraged, following his own guess at the right course. To others he recommended medical care and diets, knowing, as I said at the start, many useful cures. His ‘cytmids’ were his favourite treatment: this was his own name for a pain-killer made of bear’s grease. But questions involving expectations and success and property inheritance he put off to another time, with the words ‘It will all come to pass when I wish it, and Alexander my prophet asks me and prays on your behalf.’
22
The fixed charge for each oracle was a drachma and two obols. Don’t imagine this was cheap, my friend, or that it gave him a meagre income. He collected up to seventy or eighty thousand a year, as people were so avid they handed in ten or fifteen questions each at a time. He didn’t keep what he received for himself or salt it away to become rich; but as by now he had a lot of people around him—helpers, servants, questioners, oracle-writers, oracle-keepers, secretaries, sealers, interpreters—he paid each according to his rank.
23
By this time he was also sending people abroad to spread reports of the oracle among other nations, and to announce that he gave prophecies, found runaway slaves, detected thieves and robbers, showed the way to buried treasure, healed the sick, and sometimes even raised the dead. The result was that crowds came running and jostling from all directions, with sacrifices and offerings—and a double share for the god’s prophet and disciple. For this oracle too had become known:
24
My orders to you are to honour my servant the prophet:
I care not so much for possessions, but I care for my prophet.
In the end, when many people of good sense came to themselves, as it were from a deep intoxication, and banded together against him, especially the followers of Epicurus; and when throughout the cities they gradually saw through the trickery and contrivances by which the thing was staged; he issued a threatening proclamation against them, stating that Pontus was full of atheists and Christians* who did not scruple to utter the foulest abuse about him. These he said should be driven away by stoning, if the goodwill of the god was to be preserved. He also gave out the following oracle about Epicurus himself. When somebody asked him what Epicurus was doing in Hades, he answered:
25
He wears leaden shackles while sitting surrounded by filth.
So are you surprised that the shrine acquired a great reputation, seeing that the questions of those who applied to it were so shrewd and intelligent?
The war he waged with Epicurus was without negotiations or truce, and not surprisingly. Who else would be a more justified object of attack from a quack who loved marvels and hated truth than Epicurus, with his keen perception of the nature of things and his unique knowledge of the truth in them? Alexander regarded the schools of Plato and Chrysippus and Pythagoras as his friends, and there was a deep peace between them. But the ‘relentless’ Epicurus, for so he called him, was bitterly opposed to him, and rightly so, as he regarded all these activities as childish and ridiculous. So Alexander hated Amastris most of all the cities of Pontus, because he knew that the followers of Lepidus* and those who sympathized with them filled that city, and he would never issue an oracle to an Amastrian. On one occasion when he did venture to give a response to a senator’s brother he made a complete fool of himself, as he could neither concoct a clever reply himself nor find someone who could do a suitable one for him. The man complained of a stomach-ache, and Alexander, intending to prescribe a meal of pig’s trotter prepared with mallow, produced the following:
Sprinkle your mallow with cumin in a sacred meal-tub of porkers.
As I said earlier, he frequently exhibited the snake to those who were interested, not the whole of it, but mostly revealing the tail and the rest of its body, but keeping the head invisible under his cloak. But when he wanted to amaze the crowd even more he promised to produce the god actually talking, giving his oracles himself and not through a prophet. He proceeded without difficulty to fasten together cranes’ windpipes, and to feed them through the very lifelike head he had constructed. Then he answered the questions through somebody else out of sight, who spoke so that his voice came from that linen Asclepius.
26
These oracles were called autophones, and they were not issued to everyone without distinction, but only to those who were well dressed, rich, and generous. Thus, the oracle given to Severianus* about the invasion of Armenia was an autophone. Alexander encouraged him to invade with these words:
27
Your sharp spear shall conquer Armenians and Parthians;
Then you shall reach Rome and the Tiber’s fair stream,
Wearing a crown on your brow bright with the rays of the sun.
Afterwards, when that stupid Celt following his advice proceeded to invade with the result that he and his army were cut to pieces by Osroes, Alexander deleted this oracle from his records and replaced it by another:
’Twill do you no good to march to Armenia,
Lest a woman-dressed man shoot grim death from his bow,
And deprive you of life and the light of the sun.
This was one of his bright ideas—retrospective oracles to correct those in which he had predicted falsely and missed the mark. Often he promised a full recovery to sick people before their death, and when they died he had another oracle ready in recantation:
28
No longer look for assistance in your bitter disease:
Death stands before you and now there’s no way to escape.
He knew that the priests in Clarus and Didyma and Mallus* had a high reputation for the same kind of prophecy, and he won their friendship by referring to them many of his visitors, saying:
29
Go now to Clarus and there attend to the voice of my father.
Or again:
Draw near to the shrine of the Branchids and heed their responses.
And yet again:
Go on to Mallus where are the oracles of Amphilochus.
These were his activities within Asia, as far as Ionia, Cilicia, Paphlagonia, and Galatia. But as the fame of his shrine spread to Italy as well and reached the city of Rome, everyone tried to get there before anyone else. Some arrived in person, others sent messengers, especially those who had the highest power and status in the city. First and foremost was Rutilianus, a man of virtue and honour in most respects and put to the test in many Roman offices, but very eccentric in his attitude to the gods and with very odd beliefs about them. He had but to see a stone anointed with oil or decked with a garland, and he would straightway prostrate himself and kiss it, and stand before it for a long time, praying and begging blessings from it.
30
Well, when he heard the stories about the oracle, he nearly gave up his official duties and winged his way to Abonoteichus. But he did send deputation after deputation, and these emissaries, being simpleminded servants, were easily hoodwinked and came back reporting not just what they had seen but what they had heard as if they had seen it, and even threw in a bit more for good measure to curry favour with their master. In this way they inflamed the wretched old man and drove him into full-blown madness. Having a great many influential friends, he went around telling them what he had heard from his emissaries and adding further details on his own account. His stories filled and agitated the city, and so disturbed those at court that they at once made haste to go and hear for themselves anything that concerned them.
31
Alexander welcomed all who came very cordially, won their goodwill by his hospitality and his expensive gifts, and sent them home not just to report the responses to their questions, but to sing the praises of the god and themselves to spread monstrous lies about the shrine.
But the scoundrel also devised a scheme which was pretty astute, and way beyond the average swindler. While opening and reading the scrolls sent to him, if he found anything in the questions dangerous and reckless, he would retain them himself and not return them, in order to keep the senders in his power and virtual slaves, because of their fear in remembering what they had requested. You can understand what sort of questions are likely to be asked by rich and powerful men. So he made a large income from them, as they knew he had them in his nets.
32
I want to tell you about some of the replies which were given to Rutilianus. He asked about a son he had by a previous marriage, now in the bloom of youth, wishing to know whom he should appoint to direct his studies, and received the reply:
33
Pythagoras choose and the noble bard who tells us of warfare.
But a few days later the boy died, and Alexander was in a spot, with no excuse to offer his critics for the obvious putting to shame of the oracle. But the good-hearted Rutilianus himself forestalled him in defending the shrine, saying that the god had predicted this very event, and had therefore told him to choose for the boy not a living tutor, but Pythagoras and Homer, who were long dead and who probably had him even then as a pupil in Hades. So why should we blame Alexander if he chose to occupy himself with such nincompoops?
On another occasion Rutilianus wanted to know whose soul he had inherited, and was told:
34
First you were Achilles, and afterwards Menander;
Then what you seem now; hereafter a sunbeam:
Eighty years then a hundred are the span of your life.
In fact he died insane when he was 70, without waiting to fulfil the god’s promise. This oracle was also one of the autophones.
Once he asked about getting married and he was distinctly told:
35
Take in marriage the daughter of Alexander and Selene.
Long ago he had put out the story that his daughter’s mother was Selene, who had been smitten with love for him once when she saw him asleep—a habit of hers, to fall for good-looking men in their sleep!* Without a moment’s delay that most sagacious Rutilianus straightaway sent for the girl, celebrated his wedding as a 60-year-old bridegroom, and consummated the match, appeasing his mother-in-law Selene with whole hecatombs, and imagining that he himself had joined the dwellers in heaven.
Once he had got Italy in the bag, Alexander’s plans became ever more wide-ranging, and he sent oracle-mongers to every part of the Roman Empire, warning the cities to watch out for plagues and conflagrations and earthquakes. He assured them that they could depend on his personal help to prevent any of these happening. He sent round an oracle, one of the autophones, to all the nations during the great plague,* consisting of one line:
36
Phoebus with hair unshorn averts the dark cloud of the plague.
And you could see the line written over gateways everywhere as a charm against the plague, though in most cases it had the opposite effect. For by some chance it was those houses especially which had the line inscribed on them that were emptied of their inhabitants. Don’t imagine that I am suggesting that they perished because of the inscription: it just so happened by chance. Perhaps, too, many people were over-trustful in the verse, didn’t take precautions, and lived too carelessly, not cooperating with the oracle in countering the disease, since they had the words to protect them and unshorn Phoebus to ward off the plague with his arrows.
Moreover, Alexander set up a great many of his confederates as spies in Rome itself, who reported back to him everyone’s opinions, and gave him forewarning of the questions and the particular wishes of the questioners, so that the messengers would find him ready with his answers even before they arrived.
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These were his tactics to deal with his Italian market; while at home he also devised the following scheme. He organized some mystic rites, involving ceremonies of torch-bearing and initiation, to be performed every year over three successive days. On the first day there was a proclamation, as at Athens, but saying: ‘If any atheist or Christian or Epicurean has come to spy on our ceremonies, off with him. But those who believe in the god may perform the rites, and good fortune be their lot.’ Then at the very beginning an expulsion took place, led by himself uttering the words: ‘Out with the Epicureans!’ There followed the confinement of Leto, the birth of Apollo, his marriage to Coronis, and the birth of Asclepius. The second day saw the epiphany of Glycon and the birth of the god. On the third day came the marriage of Podalirius and Alexander’s mother. It was called the Feast of Torches and torches were lit. Finally, there was the passion of Selene and Alexander and the birth of Rutilianus’ wife. The torchbearer and presiding priest was Endymion-Alexander. He lay there for all to see, supposedly asleep, while a very attractive girl called Rutilia came down to him from the ceiling, like Selene from heaven. She was the wife of one of the emperor’s procurators, she and Alexander really were in love with each other, and there in public they hugged and kissed with her worthless husband looking on. If there had not been so many torches they might well have gone even further. After an interval he came back wearing his priestly robes and amid total silence, and then intoned in a loud voice, ‘Hail, Glycon!’, while his retinue of pretended Eumolpidae and Ceryces* from Paphlagonia, wearing brogues and belching garlic, gave the response, ‘Hail, Alexander!’
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Frequently during the torch-procession and the wild leaping of the initiates his thigh was exposed deliberately and seen to be golden, probably because he was wearing gilded leather which reflected the light of the torches. This once led to a discussion about him between two of our clever dicks, on whether his golden thigh meant he had the soul of Pythagoras or another one like it. When this debate was referred to Alexander himself, King Glycon settled the point with an oracle:
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Sometimes the soul of Pythagoras fades, and again has renewal;
His gift of prophecy comes from the mind of Zeus as its source.
The father has sent it to us bringing help to all men good and true;
Then once more to Zeus it returns, when Zeus with his thunderbolt strikes it.
Though he warned everyone to abstain from having sex with boys as being an unholy practice, this prince of virtue had an artful scheme for his own advantage. He used to order the cities of Pontus and Paphlagonia to send him choirboys for a three-year period, to serve him by singing hymns to the god. They had to examine, choose, and send the noblest born, the most youthful and the handsomest. He then kept them locked up and treated them like bought slaves, sleeping with them and using them offensively in every way. It was his habit too never to welcome and embrace anyone over 18 with a kiss on the lips: he gave his hand to others to be kissed, and kissed only those in the bloom of youth, who were said to be ‘within the kiss’.
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Thus he continued to make a mock of simple-minded people, ruining women promiscuously and sleeping with boys. Indeed, it was generally thought a great compliment and highly desirable if he so much as cast a glance at a man’s wife; and if he went further and claimed a kiss, the husband thought that his house would be overwhelmed by a flood of good fortune. Many women even boasted that they had borne children by Alexander, and their husbands confirmed the truth of their claims.
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I’d like to tell you too of a dialogue between Glycon and a certain Sacerdos of Tieion, whose intelligence you can judge from his questions. I read this exchange inscribed in golden letters in Sacerdos’ house at Tius.
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‘Tell me, lord Glycon,’ he asked, ‘who are you?’
‘I am the new Asclepius,’ he replied.
‘What do you mean—are you different from the old one?’
‘It is not proper for you to be told that.’
‘How many years will you stay with us giving oracles?’
‘One thousand and three.’
‘Then where will you go?’
‘To Bactra and the country there; for the barbarians too must have the benefit of my presence among them.’
‘Do the other shrines at Didyma and Clarus and Delphi still have your father Apollo delivering oracles, or are the responses now given there false?’
‘Do not seek to know that: it is not proper either.’
‘Who shall I become after my present life?’
‘A camel, then a horse, then a sage and a prophet as good as Alexander.’
Such was the exchange between Glycon and Sacerdos, at the end of which he uttered a metrical oracle, knowing that Sacerdos was a follower of Lepidus:
Put no trust in Lepidus, for a pitiful fate does attend him.
That arose from his deep fear of Epicurus, as I said earlier, seeing him as a rival sophist whose arguments could expose his own chicanery.
In fact he once caused serious danger to an Epicurean who had the courage to show him up in the presence of a large gathering. This man came forward and said in a loud voice: ‘Look here, Alexander, you induced some Paphlagonian or other to bring his servants on a capital charge before the governor of Galatia, accusing them of having murdered his son, who was studying in Alexandria. But the lad is alive and has returned large as life, after the servants have been executed, handed over by you to wild beasts.’
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The facts were that the lad had sailed up into Egypt as far as Clysma, where there was a boat putting out to sea, and he was persuaded to join it and go to India. So, since he didn’t turn up when expected, those poor servants of his assumed that the lad had either perished when sailing on the Nile or been killed by robbers (there were many around at the time), and they returned to report his disappearance. Then came the oracle and their sentence—followed by the appearance of the young man with the story of his travels.
This was the man’s account of it; but Alexander, stung by the exposure and unable to endure the truth of this rebuke, ordered the bystanders to stone him, or they themselves would be put under a curse and be called Epicureans. The stoning had just begun when a leading citizen of Pontus called Demostratus, who was on a visit there, threw his arms around the man and rescued him from death. But he was very nearly stoned to death, and quite right too! What need had he to be the only sane man among such lunatics, and be on the receiving end of Paphlagonian stupidity?
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So much for him. When the applicants for oracles were being summoned in order, which took place the day before the responses were given, if it happened to anyone that when the herald asked ‘Is there a prophecy for this man?’, the reply from within was ‘Go to the devil’, then nobody would ever welcome that man to his home again or share fire and water with him; but he had to be driven from country to country as being profane and godless, and an Epicurean, which was the worst insult of all.
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To be sure, one of Alexander’s most grotesque performances was this. He got hold of Epicurus’ Basic Doctrines,* which, as you know, is the finest of his books and summarizes the main tenets of the man’s creed, and taking it into the centre of the market square he burnt it on a pile of fig-wood, as if he were burning the man himself. He then threw the ashes into the sea, pronouncing the following oracle as he did so:
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Consume with fire, I bid you, the senseless old man’s doctrines.
The wretched fellow did not realize what a source of blessings that book is for its readers, and what peace, tranquillity, and freedom it produces in them, releasing them from fears, delusions, and prodigies, from vain hopes and excessive desires; instilling understanding and truth into them, and really purifying their judgments, not with torch and squills* and that sort of rubbish, but with right reasoning, truth, and frank speaking.
But of all this scoundrel’s escapades let me tell you of one which was the most daring. Having easy access to the palace and the court through the influence there of Rutilianus, he issued an oracle at the height of the war in Germany, when the late emperor Marcus was now fighting it out with the Marcomanni and the Quadi.* The oracle advised that two lions should be thrown alive into the Danube with a lot of spices and splendid offerings. But you had better hear the oracle itself.
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Into the stream of Danube, flowing from Zeus as his source,
I command you to throw a pair of those that attend upon Cybele,
Beasts of the mountains; and all that India nurtures
In flowers and sweet-smelling herbs: then straightway will come to you
Victory, great glory, and after them peace that is lovely.
However, when these orders had been carried out, the lions swam across to the enemy’s shore and the barbarians killed them with clubs, thinking they were some strange kind of dogs or wolves. And what came ‘straightway’ was a most appalling disaster to our troops, with something like twenty thousand completely destroyed. Then followed the events at Aquileia, when the city narrowly escaped being captured. Alexander dealt with this outcome of the events by feebly producing the Delphic excuse in the case of the oracle given to Croesus:* that the god had predicted victory, but without indicating whether it was to the Romans or their enemies.
By now, as crowds were pouring in, causing congestion in their city through the mass of visitors to the shrine, as well as a shortage of provisions, he devised what he called ‘nocturnal oracles’. He took the scrolls and slept on them, so he claimed, and then gave the replies which he supposedly heard from the god in a dream. Most of them were not clear, but confused and ambiguous, especially when he noticed that a scroll had been sealed with particular care. Without taking any risks with these he would put down any answer that occurred to him at random, thinking that this way of doing it was quite fitting for oracles. And there were interpreters sitting there for the purpose of explaining and unravelling these oracles, for which they took large fees from those who had received them. What is more, this activity was subject to a commission, as the interpreters each had to pay Alexander an Attic talent.
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Sometimes, to cause astonishment among the simple-minded, he would give an oracle for someone who had neither asked nor sent a question, and didn’t even exist, like the following:
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Seek you the man who is secretly thrashing around
In bed at your home with Calligeneia your wife?
’Tis your slave Protogenes, who was utterly trusted by you.
You once violated him, and now in return on your wife
He pays off the score for the outrage he suffered himself.
But against you a sinister charm by them is devised
To stop you from hearing or seeing whatever they’re doing together.
This you’ll find on the floor, right under your bed and close to the wall,
By the head: and Calypso your maid knows the secret as well.
What Democritus would not have been worried to hear names and places clearly stated, and then soon expressed his contempt when he understood the device?
On another occasion he replied in prose to someone who was not present and didn’t even exist, telling him to go back: ‘For the man who sent you was killed today by his neighbour Diocles, assisted by the robbers Magnus, Celer, and Bubalus, who have already been caught and locked up.’
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He often gave oracles to barbarians as well, if one of them asked a question in his native language, Syrian or Celtic, since he could easily find foreigners in the city of the same race as the questioners. For that reason a long time elapsed between the offering of the scrolls and the response, to give time for them to be opened safely and at leisure, and for people to be found who could translate them all. An example of this type was the following response to a Scythian:
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Morphen eubargoulis eis skian chnechikrage leipsei phaos.*
I must tell you also of a few replies given to me. When I asked whether Alexander was bald and sealed the scroll with conspicuous care, the reply came as a ‘nocturnal oracle’:
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Sabardalachou malachaattealos en.
On another occasion I asked the same question in two separate scrolls, using different names; ‘Where did Homer come from?’ In dealing with the first he was deliberately deceived by my servant, who, when asked why he had come, replied, ‘To ask for a cure for a pain in the side.’ So the reply came:
I advise you anoint it with cytmis along with the foam of a racehorse.
With the second he was told that the sender was enquiring whether he should go to Italy by sea or by land, and his reply had nothing at all to do with Homer:
Venture not over the sea but travel the highways on foot.
Indeed I myself set him many traps like these. For instance, once I asked one question, but wrote on the outside of the scroll, in the usual way, ‘So-and-so has eight questions’, inventing the name and including eight drachmas and whatever extra amount was required. Trusting in the accompanying fee and in the inscription on the scroll, he sent eight responses to my one question: ‘When will Alexander be caught cheating?’, which, as they say, had no relation to heaven or earth, but were all of them senseless and unintelligible.
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He discovered all this later on, and also that I was dissuading Rutilianus from the marriage and from relying so heavily on his hopes raised by the shrine, and this naturally caused him to hate me and regard me as a bitter enemy. Once when Rutilianus enquired about me, he answered:
Gossip while walking at night does he fancy and unchaste copulation.
So altogether I was naturally his bitterest foe.
When he found out that I had come to the city and learnt that I was the Lucian—I’d also brought with me two soldiers with pike and spear, lent to me by my friend at that time, the governor of Cappadocia, to escort me as far as the sea—he straightaway sent for me most courteously and with every mark of friendship. I went along and found a lot of people with him, but by good fortune I took my soldiers with me. He offered me his right hand to kiss, as he did to most people, and I grasped it as if to kiss it, but gave him a hearty bite instead, which very nearly crippled his hand.
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Even before that the bystanders had been indignant that I had called him ‘Alexander’ and not ‘Prophet’, and now they set upon me for sacrilege, strangling me and beating me. But he controlled himself very nobly and made them desist, promising that he would easily tame me and prove Glycon’s power, who could turn the harshest enemies into friends. Then he cleared the place of everyone else, and began to remonstrate with me, saying that he knew perfectly well who I was, and all the advice I was giving Rutilianus. ‘What are you up to in treating me like this, when I can do a lot to promote your interests with him?’ By now I was glad to accept this offer of friendship, seeing what a dangerous position I had got into; and shortly afterwards I came out having made it up with him, and the onlookers were quite astonished at how easily my feelings had changed.
Later, when I decided to set sail—and I happened to have only Xenophon* with me on my visit, having sent my father and my family ahead to Amastris—he supplied me with many gifts and keepsakes, and promised that he himself would provide a boat and crew to escort me. I thought this a decent and kindly offer, but halfway through the voyage I noticed the skipper in tears and arguing with the sailors, and I thought my future prospects were not hopeful. They had had instructions from Alexander to seize and fling us into the sea, which would have ended his war with me then and there. But the skipper in tears persuaded the crew not to commit any terrible crime against us; and he said to me, ‘For sixty years, as you see, I’ve lived a blameless and devout life, and I wouldn’t wish at my age, with a wife and children, to stain my hands with blood.’ Then he revealed why he had taken us on board, and the orders Alexander had given. He put us ashore at Aegiali (which is mentioned by noble Homer) and then returned home.
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There I found some men from the Bosporus sailing along the coast. They were envoys travelling from King Eupator* to Bithynia to deliver their annual tribute, and when I told them of our predicament I had a kindly reception from them, I was taken aboard, and got safely to Amastris, after so nearly losing my life.
After that I began to arm myself against him, and to use every effort in my desire to get my own back. Even before his plot against me, I loathed him and regarded him as a bitter enemy because of his foul character. So I set out to prosecute him, in which I was joined by many others, especially the followers of Timocrates,* the philosopher from Heraclea. But I was restrained by Avitus, the then governor of Bithynia and Pontus, who practically begged and besought me to lay off, because out of goodwill to Rutilianus he could not punish Alexander, however clearly his guilt was proved. Thus I was checked in my impulse, and had to curb my ill-timed zeal before a judge in that frame of mind.
And how about this for another consummate act of impudence by Alexander, to request the emperor to change the name of Abonoteichus and call it Ionopolis, and to mint a new coin, engraved on one side with the image of Glycon and on the other with that of Alexander, wearing the wreath of his grandfather Asclepius and holding the scimitar of his maternal forebear Perseus?
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Though he had predicted in an oracle about himself that he was destined to live to 150, and then die from being struck by lightning, he suffered a most miserable death before he reached 70. Appropriately for a son of Podalirius,* his leg became gangrenous up to the groin and he was infested with maggots. That was when he was discovered to be bald, as he let the doctors put a lotion on his head to ease the pain, which they couldn’t have done without removing his wig.
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So ended Alexander’s dramatic career and this was the final scene in his life of play-acting: you might think it looked like the work of Providence, though in fact it was due to chance. It was appropriate too that there were funeral ceremonies worthy of his life—a contest which was set up regarding the shrine. The most conspicuous of his confederates and quacks appointed Rutilianus to decide which of them should have precedence, take over the shrine, and be crowned with the garland of the priest and prophet. One of them was Paetus, a doctor by profession, and grey-haired, though his behaviour suited neither his profession nor his grey hair. But Rutilianus, who had set up the competition, sent them away ungarlanded, and kept the office of prophet for Alexander after his death.
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These few details as a sample out of many, my friend, I decided to record, partly as a favour to you, my companion and friend, and one whom of all others I most admire for your wisdom, your passion for truth, the mildness, reasonableness, and serenity of your character, and your courtesy to everyone you meet; but mainly—and this will gratify you even more—to vindicate Epicurus, a man truly hallowed and saintly by nature, who alone rightly understood noble ideals and passed them on, and who was the liberator of all who became his pupils. And I believe that my work will seem to be of some use to its readers by refuting some things, and confirming others, in the minds of men of good sense.
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