Lucianus - Lucianus (English spelling)

A Syrian-born Greek writer. He mastered rhetoric and Attic prose (pseudo-archaic) in Ionia, and traveled to Greece, Italy, and Gaul, where he gained fame as a court lawyer and lecturer. He began his life as a writer in Athens at around the age of 40, and in his later years served in Egypt, part of the Roman Empire. He wrote over 80 works, including forgeries, many of which are dialogues. At the time, faith in the Greek gods had long since waned, Christianity had not yet become a world religion, and dubious religions were rampant in the world, with the Pythagoreans, Academicians, Cynics, Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, and other outcasts engaged in fruitless debates. Many of his works satirize the desire for fame, greed for money, and superstition of these miracle performers and philosophical schools. His short autobiographical work "The Dream," "The Auction of Lives," in which he sells various philosophical schools, "The Fishermen," in which he fishes out philosophers by dangling gold coins from the Acropolis, "Alexander the False Prophet" and "The Ascension of Peregrinus," which attack pseudo-religious people and philosophers, "Zeus the Tragic Actor," in which the gods of Olympus are dismayed when they are no longer worshipped, "The Liar," which laughs at superstition, "Toxalis," a theory of friendship, "Dialogues of Courtesans," which depicts the joys and sorrows of courtesans and their customers who live between fact and fiction, and "True Stories," which includes a trip to the moon and life in the womb of a whale, have been imitated by many later generations. Although he himself did not have a firm philosophical stance, he is also called the Erasmus and Voltaire of antiquity because of his versatile intellect.

[Tetsuro Nakatsuka]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

シリア生まれのギリシア語による作家。イオニアで修辞学とアッティカ風散文（擬古文）をマスターし、ギリシア、イタリア、ガリアを遊歴して法廷弁護人あるいは講演者として名声を博した。40歳ごろからアテネで作家生活に入り、晩年はローマ帝国のエジプトで仕官した。作品は偽作も含めて八十余編で多くは対話形式。当時はギリシアの神々への信仰が衰えてすでに久しく、キリスト教もいまだ世界宗教とはならず、世間にはいかがわしい宗教がはびこり、ピタゴラス派、アカデメイア派、犬儒派、逍遙(しょうよう)学派、ストア派、エピクロス派、懐疑派などの末流が実りのない議論に明け暮れていた。こうした奇跡演出者や哲学諸派の名誉欲、金銭欲、迷信などを風刺した作品が多い。自伝的小品『夢』、哲学諸派を叩(たた)き売る『生き方の競売』、アクロポリスから金貨を垂らして哲学者どもを釣り上げる『漁師』、えせ宗教家・哲学者を攻撃する『偽予言者アレクサンドロス』『ペレグリノスの昇天』、崇拝されなくなったオリンポスの神々がうろたえる『悲劇役者ゼウス』、迷信を笑う『嘘(うそ)好き』、友情論『トクサリス』、虚実の間(あわい)に生きる遊女や嫖客(ひょうかく)の哀歓を描く『遊女の対話』、そして月世界旅行や鯨の胎内生活を含む『本当の話』は後世の模倣者も多い。彼自身は確固たる哲学的立場をもたないが、その多才な知性のゆえに、古代のエラスムス、ボルテールとも称される。

［中務哲郎］

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