{"id":1279,"date":"2025-04-22T17:56:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T17:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2025-04-22T17:56:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T17:56:03","slug":"34-lucian-of-samosata-c-125-ad-after-180-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/22\/34-lucian-of-samosata-c-125-ad-after-180-ad\/","title":{"rendered":"34. Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 AD &#8211; after 180 AD)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Original language: Koine Greek (same language as the New Testament).<br><br>Samosata was, at the time of Lucian&#8217;s birth, in the Roman province of Syria. Today it&#8217;s Samsat, in southeast Turkey.<br><br>I read the Oxford World&#8217;s Classics edition of Lucian&#8217;s Selected Dialogues, translated by C.D.N. Costa, published 2005.<br> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"298\" height=\"466\" src=\"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/lucian.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/lucian.jpg 298w, https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/lucian-192x300.jpg 192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The dialogue &#8220;Charon or the Observers&#8221; is so terrible, I am going to skip through it.<br><br>Lucian is a terrible writer, there is nothing else for it. <br><br><strong>Last thoughts on Lucian<\/strong><br><br>Most of his writing was just not good. &#8220;A True History&#8221; is a traveler&#8217;s tale in the (later) vein of Gulliver&#8217;s Travels, but Lucian is no Swift. I think the piece I liked best was &#8220;Hermotimus or on Philosophical Schools.&#8221; It&#8217;s a dialogue in which Lycinus convinces Hermotimus that he shouldn&#8217;t be devoting his entire life to the Stoics. <br><br>I have no desire to read more Lucian. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Original language: Koine Greek (same language as the New Testament). Samosata was, at the time of Lucian&#8217;s birth, in the Roman province of Syria. Today it&#8217;s Samsat, in southeast Turkey. I read the Oxford World&#8217;s Classics edition of Lucian&#8217;s Selected Dialogues, translated by C.D.N. Costa, published 2005. The dialogue &#8220;Charon or the Observers&#8221; is so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1281,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/1281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}