Lucian of Samosata, De Morte Peregrini, Austin Morris Harmon (Translator), 1

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[1] Best wishes from Lucian to Cronius.¹

Unlucky Peregrinus, or, as he delighted to style himself, Proteus,² has done exactly what Proteus in Homer did.³ After turning into everything for the sake of notoriety and achieving any number of transformations, here at last he has turned into fire; so great, it seems, was the love of notoriety that eae be him. And now your genial friend has got imself carbonified after the fashion of Empedocles, except that the latter at least tried to escape observation when he threw himself into the crater,⁴ while this gentleman waited for that one of the Greek festivals which draws the greatest crowds, heaped up a very large pyre, and leaped into it before all those witnesses; he even addressed the Greeks on the subject not many days before his venture.

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

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Passing of Peregrinus (English) (Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τῆς Περεγρίνου Τελευτῆς Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936 (printing).) — 1 focus

[1] Λουκιανὸς Κρονίῳ εὖ πράττειν. ¹

Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς κακοδαίμων Περεγρῖνος, ἢ ὡς αὐτὸς ἔχαιρεν ὀνομάζων ἑαυτόν, Πρωτεύς, αὐτὸ δὴ ἐκεῖνο τὸ τοῦ Ὁμηρικοῦ Πρωτέως ἔπαθεν· ἅπαντα γὰρ δόξης ἕνεκα γενόμενος καὶ μυρίας τροπὰς τραπόμενος, τὰ τελευταῖα ταῦτα καὶ πῦρ ἐγένετο· τοσούτῳ ἄρα τῷ ἔρωτι τῆς δόξης εἴχετο. καὶ νῦν ἐκεῖνος ἀπηνθράκωταί σοι Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς βέλτιστος κατὰ τὸν Ἐμπεδοκλέα, παρʼ ὅσον Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς μὲν κἂν διαλαθεῖν ἐπειράθη ἐμβαλὼν ἑαυτὸν εἰς τοὺς κρατῆρας, Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς Λουκιανὸς δὲ γεννάδας οὗτος, τὴν πολυανθρωποτάτην τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν πανηγύρεων τηρήσας, πυρὰν ὅτι μεγίστην νήσας ἐνεπήδησεν ἐπὶ τοσούτων μαρτύρων, καὶ λόγους τινὰς ὑπὲρ τούτου εἰπὼν πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας οὐ πρὸ πολλῶν ἡμερῶν τοῦ τολμήματος.

Translations (1)

The Death of Peregrine Perseus (The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 4. Fowler, Henry Watson and Fowler, Francis George, translators. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 1 focus

[1] Lucian to Cronius. Greeting.

Poor dear Peregrine—or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,—has quite come up to his namesake in Homer. We have seen him under many shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory’s sake; and now—'tis his last appearance—we see him in the shape of fire. So vast was his ambition. Yes, Cronius; all that is left of the best of men is a handful of ashes, It’s just like Empedocles; only with a difference. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater unobserved: not so our high-souled friend, He bides his time till all Greece is mustered in full force—constructs a pyre of the largest dimensions—and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the subject of his daring enterprise!

Notes on the current edition

The Passing of Peregrinus

The greeting here employed (its sense might perhaps be more adequately rendered by “Good issues to all your doings”) marks Cronius as a Platonist. Lucian himself (Lapsus, 4) ascribes its origin to Plato, and he employs it in addressing the philosopher Nigrinus (I, p. 98). A Platonist named Cronius is more than once mentioned by Porphyry, but to identify the two would contribute next to nothing to our knowledge of either.

Cf. Aulus Gellius, XII, 11: philosophum nomine Peregrinum, cui postea cognomentum Proteus factum est, virum gravem et constantem, etc. Lucian calls him Peregrinus Proteus in Demonax, 21 (I, p. 156), but simply Proteus the Cynic in adv. Indoct., 14 (III, p. 192), and he is Proteus to the Philostrati (cf. Vit. Soph. II, 1, 33 and for the elder Philostratus the title of his lost work Proteus the Cynic; or, the Sophist), to Tatian (Orat. ad Graecos, 25), and to Athenagoras (Legat. de Christian., 26). The name Peregrinus is used in Aulus Gellius, VIII, 3, Ammianus Marcellinus, X XIX, 1, 39, Tertullian ad Martyres, 4, and Eusebius, Chron., Vol. II, p. 170, Schéne. From the passage in Gellius cited above we can infer only that he did not hear the sobriquet Proteus when he was in Athens. The manner of its employment by Lucian is sufficient evidence that it did not originate with Lucian, or after the death of Peregrinus. It was probably applied to him towards the close of his career. That it bears a sense very like what Lucian attributes to it is clear from Maximus of Tyre, VIII, 1. In § 27 Lucian professes to have heard that he wanted to change it to Phoenix after his decision to immolate himself.

The transformations of the sea-god in his effort to escape from Menelaus, who wanted to consult him, are told in the Odyssey, IV, 454-459.

Of Aetna; it was said that the manner of his death remained unknown until the mountain cast up one of his golden sandals.

Lucian of Samosata De Morte Peregrini 1

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

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