Read Lucian’s[618] declamation _On Phalaris_ and his various
_Dialogues of the Dead and Courtesans_, and other works on different
subjects, in nearly all of which he ridicules the ideas of the
heathen. Thus he attacks their silly errors in the invention of
gods; their brutal and ungovernable passions and lack of restraint;
the monstrous fancies and fictions of their poets; their consequent
errors in statesmanship; the irregular course and changes and chances
of their life; the boastful behaviour of the philosophers, full of
nothing but pretence and idle opinions; in a word, his aim is, as we
have said, to hold up the heathen to ridicule in prose. He seems to
be one of those persons who regard nothing seriously; ridiculing and
mocking at the opinions of others, he does not state what opinions
he himself holds, unless we may say that his opinion is that one can
know nothing for certain. His style is excellent, his diction clear,
suitable and expressive; he shows a special liking for distinctness
and purity united with brilliancy and appropriate dignity. His
composition is so well fitted together that the reader does not seem
to be reading prose, but an agreeable song, whose nature is not too
obtrusive, seems to drop into the listener’s ears. In a word, as
already said, his style is charming, but not in keeping with the
subjects which he himself has determined to ridicule. That he was one
of those who held that nothing could be known for certain is shown by
the following inscription in the work:
“I, Lucian, wrote this, I who am skilled in what is old and
foolish;
For what men think wise is foolish.
So then nothing that the mind of man can conceive is certain;
What you admire, seems ridiculous to others.”