LTJCHAIRE. 516 LUCIAN. (les institutions monarcliiijucs de la France sous Ics premiers Capitiens, !)fi7-llS0 (2 vols., 1884) ; Louis 17., le (j'ros: annates de sa rie et de son rigne (1889); Les communes frangaises d I'epoque des Capitiens directs (ISSIO) ; and Manuel des institutions frangaises: Piriode des Capeliens directs (1892). LUCHU. See Loo-ciioo. LUCIA DI LAMMEBMOOR, Im.-chp'ii dE lain'iiu'i-miTur'. An i)|)era in three acts by Doni- zetti (Naples, 1835), with words by Salvatore Camniarano. The plot is borrowed with modi- fication of the action from Scott's Bride of Lam- ■mermuor. A French version was produced in Paris in 1839 and an English version in London in 1843. LTJCIAN, lu'shou (Gk. vvKiav6(, Loukianos, L. Lucianus), (c.l20-c.2()0 a.d. ) . The most bril- liant representative of the revived Greek litera- ture under the Eonian Empire, and one of the world's greatest wits. He was born about the year A.D. 120 at Samo.sata, the capital of the Syrian District of Commagene. Except for a casual denunciatory paragraph in Suidas, his biography must be reconstructed from his writ- ings. In the charming little piece entitled "The Dream," he tells us how his parents, being poor, apprenticed him to his maternal uncle, who was a sculptor. One of his first careless strokes spoiled a fine slab of marble, whereupon his uncle proceeded to cudgel him, and the lad ran home weeping to his sympatlictic niotlicr. That night he saw in a dream two beautiful women contending for him — education (literaiT culture) and handicraft (for as such he esteemed the art of Phidias). Culture prevailed, and Lucian tells the story to one of the audiences of his success- ful prime, that poor boys may be encouraged by his exanii)le to aim at the highest. Ehetoric was the surest passport to all forms of distinction for a young provincial in the Pioman Empire of the second century. The young Syrian or Cappa- docian who mastered the Greek language and acquired the faculty of fluent and pleasing dis- course was no longer a barbarian, but a Greek and a member of an intellectual aristocracy that made him at home in Tarsus or Massiiia, in Ephesus. Alexandria, or Athens. And he had his clioice of the two most honorable an<l lucra- tive professions of the dav, that of the advocate, and that of the 'sophist' or professor of rlictoric. Such was Lucian's life till about the age of forty. Of his practice at the bar of Antioch, to which Suidas alluiles, he tells us nothing. But we catch glimpses of him as a popular lecturer and declaimcr in Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, Italy, and Gaul. A few of his extant writings, by their trifling or purely formal character, would be classified as 'sophistic' and presumably of this period. .Such are the dcclamatinns on the Tyrannicides, on Piialaris, on "The Disin- herited Son." the amusing encomium on the fly, the '"Case of Sigma vs. Tau." and the "Lawsuit of the Vowels." Other little pieces scattered through his works read like graceful introduc- tions to more formal literary displays. Such may have been the "Dream." the "Herodotus." and the highly wrought descriptions of Zeuxis Hippocentaur. or of the house in which the speaker was entertained in Macedonia. It was inevitable that Lucian should outgrow this trifling. It pleased him to represent the change as a conversion to pliilosophy, and in the "Aigrinus," a Platonic philosopher of that name (perliaps invented by Lucian), eloquently con- trasts the life of unsatisfying and restless lu.- ury led by the great at Home with the piiilosophi- cal peace and calm attaiiuible at Athens. In the "Twice Accused" Khetoric first brings suit against liim for abandoning her, his lawful spouse. Slie had foiuid him a little Syrian bar- barian knocking about Ionia and had made him a Greek gentleman and a prosperous man; and now he basely deserts her for Dialogus (philos- ophy). On the other hand, Dialogus complains that Lucian has dragged him down from high discour.M' about imuHjrtality in the Academy to employ him upon vulgar and trivial themes, and has impaired the purity of his native Platonic speech by Aristophanic jests and Menippean satire. The dialogues thus aptly characterized bj' Lu- cian constitute the best known and largest part of his extant work. There are twenty-six little Dialoyucs of the (lods, the humor of which con- sists in gravelj' accepting as facts the most gro- tesque anthropomorphic tales of the mythology, and deducing the consequences with Swiftian verisimilitude. Of a like character are the fifteen dialogues of marine deities. The Dialogues of the Dead dwell with fierce and painful insistence on the impartial democracy of the grave, and the revelation that it brings of the nothingness of human life. In similar vein are the longer "Charon" and "^lenippus." The Dialogues of Courtesans portray one of the darker sides of ancient life, largely in literary reminiscences from the new comedy. To the Dialogues of the (lods must be added the "Zeus Confuted," in which a cynic philoso]ilier challenges Zeus to reconcile his own supremacy with the Homeric doctrine of fate ; and the very amusing "Zeus in Tragics." In other cases the dialogue is the vehicle of satire on contemporary life — especially the pretensions and weaknesses of the philos- ophers and the sujierstitions of the multitude. Such are the "Day Dreams," the "Lic-.Monger," the "Fishers." the "Sale of Lives" or auction of the Philosophies in the persons of their tradi- tional representatives, the '"Symposium" or "Banquet of Philosophers," which degenerate^ into a Donnybrook fair. Sometimes the dialogue form is abandoned for that of the essay, the biography real or fictitious, the narrative epistle to a friend, or the novelette. "How to Write History" combines many sensible precepts with entertaining satire. The "Demonax" is a biogra- phy of Lucian's ideal philosopher — perhaps in- vented by him. The letter on the death of Pere- grinus describes the self-ci-emation at Ol^vmpia of a typical figure of the age, half religious mys- tic, half charlatan, for whom Lucian felt no sym- pathy in either character. The "Alexander," or "False Prophet." portrays the notable career of the impostor Alexander of Ahonotcichos, who barely missed founding a new religion. There is a good account of it in Fronde's Short ffludies. The True History is a parody of the romances of the day. and itself the ancestor of Rabelaisian romance. The Ass is a tale of Thessalian en- chantjnents and adventures .siibstantially iden- tical with that of Apuleius's Golden Ass. One of the most famous of Ltician's essays describes the petty miseries of the educated Greek who entered the service of one of the
