celebrated Greek writer, was born at Samosata, the chief city of Commagene, a district situated upon the right bank of the river Euphrates. The precise dates of his birth and death are unknown; but it seems to be generally allowed that he flourished during the reign of the Antonines and of Commodus. Reitz, who has examined this point with much minuteness, makes his life extend between the years 120 and 200 of our era. His own writings supply us with what scanty information we have respecting his private history. His parents, he tells us, were poor, and found it necessary that their son should at an early period choose the profession by which he was to gain his livelihood. His maternal uncle was a sculptor of some fame at Samosata, and was willing to teach his nephew his own profession; but the youth having contrived awkwardly to break a marble slab which he was set to polish, received a severe beating from his cross-grained uncle. Lucian refused to submit to such treatment, and gave up all thoughts of succeeding to the lucrative business of his uncle. He then turned his attention to a more liberal profession, and devoted himself to the study of law; but becoming disgusted with the chicanery and deceit of which he was obliged to be cognizant, he abandoned his new profession, and applied himself to philosophy. He then visited the different parts of the civilized world; he resided several years in Gaul and in Italy, of which he gives an account in his treatises entitled Nigrinus, but chiefly in Athens, where he became thoroughly master of the Greek language. It is believed, from incidents mentioned in Nigrinus and Hermotimus, that Lucian approached his fortieth year when he left Gaul, where he appears to have resided from ten to fifteen years. Massieu imagines that he returned to Samosata, and remained in his native place till Marcus Aurelius conferred upon him a lucrative situation in Egypt. Wieland, however, who examined this part of his life minutely, gives satisfactory reasons for believing that he spent most of his time at Athens, where he composed the greater part of his finest dialogues. He was certainly resident in Greece A.D. 165, where he witnessed the self-sacrifice of the enthusiast Peregrinus Proteus on the funeral pile, during the celebration of the Olympic games. He spent the latter part of his life in Egypt, but he does not state the precise nature of the office which he filled in that country.

Lucian is distinguished as a writer for fertility of genius, wit, taste, and elegance, and for the talent of conferring the grace of novelty upon the most common and familiar topics. Notwithstanding the great change in customs and manners, after a lapse of seventeen hundred years, the wit of Lucian is still amusing, his satire still applicable, and his pictures of manners still fresh and vivid. It must be confessed that he sometimes exceeds reasonable bounds whilst he ridicules the absurd superstitions of his countrymen, and laughs at the mountebanks who were decked out with the name of philosophers. Whilst he merely intends to attack superstition, he is often so carried away by his wit as to ridicule all religious sentiments. He strikes at the very foundation of morality; and the blows which he aims at the hypocrites amongst philosophers, sometimes fall on the good and virtuous. In depicting the manners of the vicious, he is at times obscene and licentious. Amongst the most spirited of his works we may mention, the Dialogues of the Gods, in which Lucian makes the gods converse, as it were, in their domestic capacity and undress, and in moments of weakness, when, not being aware that they were privily overheard by men, they exposed themselves to the view of their worshippers in all their nakedness. In these dramatic scenes they show themselves, by their follies, baseness, and vices, unworthy of the esteem and confidence of mankind. Dialogues of the Dead, in which he ridicules with his peculiar humour the vulgar tenets respecting the state of souls after death, hell-torments, and the deification of dead persons. Timon, in which there is considerable resemblance to the Plutus of Aristophanes; the Dream of Micyllus, or the Cock; Jupiter Tragedius, the comic title of a little drama of much wit and humour, in which Jupiter gets such serious wounds as he has never since been able to recover. The Convicted Jupiter, in which Lucian shows the inconsistency of the pagan doctrines concerning fate, the providence of the gods, and the rewards and punishments after death. The Sale of the Philosophers, in which he exposes the absurd tenets, manners, and principles of every sect. The Angler, or the resuscitated Philosophers. In the story of Lucius, or the Enchanted Ass, there are several indecent and licentious scenes, though it abounds with humour. This story has been ascribed by some to Lucius of Patrae, and there seems good reason for believing that Lucian merely abridged it; but no one has ever doubted his claim to the story entitled The True History, a long tissue of incredible adventures, and extraordinary voyages made in seas full of wonders. His intention was to ridicule the impostures which Etesias and Iambulus had attempted to palm upon the world as true stories. The tract entitled How to write History has been unanimously pronounced one of the best and most instructive of his writings. There have been numerous editions of the works of Lucian. The first was published in 1496; but the best is that of Hemsterhuys and Reitz, Amsterdam, 1743, three vols. 4to, to which is added a fourth volume, Lexicon Lucianum, by Conrad Reitz, 1746. It has been translated into German by Wieland, into Italian by Gozzi, and into English by Franklin (1780), and Tooke (1820).