Lucian of Samosata, De luctu, Austin Morris Harmon (Translator), 21

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[21] Up to that point, the wailing, the same stupid custom prevails everywhere; but in what follows, the burial, they have apportioned out among themselves, nation by nation, the different modes. The Greek burns, the Persian buries, the Indian encases in glass,¹ the Scythian eats, the Egyptian salts. And the latter—I have seen whereof I speak—after drying the dead man makes him his guest at table! Many a time, too, when an Egyptian wants money, his brother or his father helps him out of his straits by becoming security at the critical juncture.²

De luctu. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

On Funerals (English) (Lucian, Vol. 4. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ Πένθους Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 4. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925 (printing).) — 21 focus

[21] καὶ μέχρι μὲν θρήνων ὁ αὐτὸς ἅπασι νόμος τῆς ἀβελτερίας· τὸ δὲ ἀπὸ τούτου διελόμενοι κατὰ ἔθνη τὰς ταφὰς ὁ μὲν Ἕλλην ἔκαυσεν, ὁ δὲ Πέρσης ἔθαψεν, ὁ δὲ Ἰνδὸς ὑάλῳ περιχρίει, ὁ δὲ Σκύθης κατεσθίει, ταριχεύει δὲ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος· οὗτος μέν γε — λέγω δὲ ἰδών — ξηράνας τὸν νεκρὸν σύνδειπνον καὶ συμπότην ἐποιήσατο. πολλάκις δὲ καὶ δεομένῳ χρημάτων ἀνδρὶ Αἰγυπτίῳ ἔλυσε τὴν ἀπορίαν ἐνέχυρον ἢ ὁ ἀδελφὸς ἢ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν καιρῷ γενόμενος.

Translations (1)

Of Mourning Perseus (The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 3. Fowler, Henry Watson and Fowler, Francis George, translators. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 21 focus

[21] So far, all men are fools alike: but at this point national peculiarities make their appearance. The Greeks burn their dead, the Persians bury them; the Indian glazes the body, the Scythian eats it, the Egyptian embalms it. In Egypt, indeed, the corpse, duly dried, is actually placed at table,— I have seen it done; and it is quite a common thing for an Egyptian to relieve himself from pecuniary embarrassment by a timely visit to the pawnbroker, with his brother or father deceased.

Notes on the current edition

On Funerals

See Herodotus, 3, 24, regarding this practice among the Ethiopians, also discussed by Ctesias (Diodorus 2, 15). To Lucian, SaAos certainly meant glass, and perhaps to Herodotus also. What the substance really was is uncertain.

Compare Teles (Hense,2 p. 31, 1. 9: a lacuna in the text recedes): “and we hesitate to look at or to touch (the dead), bat they make mummies of them and keep them in the house as something handsome, and accept dead men as security. So opposed is their way to ours.” As Teles is almost certainly quoting this from Bion, it seems likely that Lucian drew from that source. But he had also read Herodotus, 2, 136.

Lucian of Samosata De luctu 21

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers