Selected Satires of Lucian [Paperback]

Lucian, born in Syria in the second century C.E., came to Greece at an early age and mastered its language and literature. He took up law, left it for public speaking, then turned to full-time writing, producing the wide range of subject matter and literary form which is represented in this collection. Lucian's genial mockery, writes Lionel Casson, aimed at man's omnipresent failings, is never out of date: the jabs he gave the hypocrites, grandstanders, fakers, and boobs of the ancient world can just as appropriately be administered to their counterparts of the modern.