Libanius

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Preface for the few ascertained facts in the life of the greatest prose satirist and the most brilliant wit of greek and latin antiquity we are indebted almost wholly to scattered and incidental allusions in his own various writings Like his immediate predecessor, Menippus the satirist, the illustrious Neoplatonist Porphyry in the third, and the orator Libanius in the fourth century, Lucian was Syrian by birth.

He was born at Samosata, its heap of ruins still retains the old name almost unchanged, on the Euphrates, not far distant from Edessa and the chief city of the district of Komagene, in the extreme northeast of Syria, about the year 120 AD.

Tradition protracts the term of his existence to the age of 90 or even 100 years.

than i

pray don't talk in that way my dear hermes

why should not i talk so who have such a number of duties to attend to toiling as i do all alone and distracted to so many services for as soon as i am up at daybreak i have to sweep out our banqueting hall and after carefully arranging the couches and putting each particular thing in order i have to take my place at the side of zeus and carry about in all directions the messages i receive from him running up and down the whole day like a courier and as soon as i have returned up here again while still covered with dust i must hand him the ambrosia before two this lately purchased cup-bearer arrived it was my business to pour in the nectar also but what is most dreadful of all is that i alone of all the gods get no sleep even at night but i must needs also be then conducting souls to pluto and acting as marshal of dead men and dance attendants in his court of justice for my employments by they are not enough to take my place in the palaestra and even to act as herald in the representative assemblies and to train orators parcelled out as i am already for all these services i must also take part in the affairs of the dead and yet the sons of leda take their places each in turn every other day in heaven and in hades but i must perforce be about my duties here and there the sons of alcimene and semele too born of wretched women though they be feast without care whereas i the son of maia the daughter of atlas wait upon them and now having but just come from sidon from the daughter of cadmus to whom he has sent me to see what the girl is about and before even i have had time to get my breath he packs me off again to argus to look after dany then go from dense says he into boeotia and have a look at by the way in truth i am quite done up and given if i could i vow i would gladly claim my right to be sold like those slaves on the earth who are vilely treated

don't mind these things child for you must perforce be submissive to your father in everything since you are but a youth And now, as you have been dispatched, march off to Argos, then to Boeotia, that you may not get a beating for your dilatoriness, for people in love are apt to have short tempers.