Lucian of Samosata De Syria dea 28

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

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

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

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

Editions (1)
Περὶ τῆς Συρίης Θεοῦ Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 4. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925 (printing).) — 28 focus

Notes on the current edition

The Goddesse of Surrye

1.
Some reduce these 300-fathom emblems to 30 by conjecture, but it is in unimportant details like this that Lucian ves rein to his inclination to parody. Mandeville gives the Howe of Babel the modest height of 64 furlongs—eight miles.
2.
This is evidently the true reason, and not either of the two that follow. That the gods can hear better from near at hand is good Semitic psychology; but the use of a pillar instead of a mountain-top, or a ziggurat, or the roof of a house, appears otherwise unevidenced in early Syria. “It was perhaps the memory of this strange rite (not however peculiar to Syria, but known also in India) which led Simeon the Stylite to ascend his column four centuries later ata site not very far west of the old temple of the Dea Syria” (C. R. Conder, Palestine, p. 206).
3.
Compare Herodotus 2, 48, and the iepds Adyos. The explanation that Lucian has in mind is probably the ee story (Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. 2, p. 30 P.).