Lucian De Morte Peregrini 1

[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.

[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!