Lucian of Samosata, De saltatione, Austin Morris Harmon (Translator), 54

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[54] If you cross the sea again to Asia, there are many dramas there—Samos, at the outset, with the fate of Polycrates and his daughter’s wanderings, extending to Persia,¹ and the stories that are still older—the loquaciousness of Tantalus, the feast of the gods at his house, the butchering of Pelops, and his shoulder of ivory.

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

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

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

Editions (1)

Περὶ Ὀρχήσεως Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936 (printing).) — 54 focus

Λυκῖνος

κἂν εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν πάλιν διαβῇς, πολλὰ κἀκεῖ δράματα· ἡ γὰρ Σάμος εὐθὺς καὶ τὸ Πολυκράτους πάθος καὶ τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ μέχρι Περσῶν πλάνη, καὶ τὰ ἔτι ἀρχαιότερα, ἡ τοῦ Ταντάλου φλυαρία καὶ ἡ παρʼ αὐτῷ θεῶν ἑστίασις καὶ ἡ Πέλοπος κρεουργία καὶ ὁ ἐλεφάντινος ὦμος αὐτοῦ.

Translations (1)

Of Pantomime Perseus (The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 2. Fowler, Henry Watson and Fowler, Francis George, translators. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 54 focus

[54] Cross once more to Asia, and Samos awaits you, with the fall of Polycrates, and his daughter’s flight into Persia; and the ancient story of Tantalus’s folly, and of the feast that he gave the Gods; of butchered Pelops, and his ivory shoulder.

Notes on the current edition

The Dance

This allusion is puzzling. Nothing about the daughter of Polycrates is known to us except that she foretold her father’s death through a dream (Herod., III, 124). Since Herodotus tells also how Syloson, the brother of Polycrates, went to Egypt as an exile, earned the gratitude of Darius, who was serving there as a guardsman, by giving him a cloak which Darius coveted and sought to buy, and later, after the death of Polycrates, visited Susa and obtained from Darius his restoration to Samos and establishment as ruler of the island, it has been thought that Lucian has been guilty of confusing the brother with the daughter. But Lucian was a little too well acquainted with Herodotus (and the world with the story of Syloson’s cloak) to make this quite credible. A gap in the text here is easily possible, but it may also be that Hellenistic imagination gave the daughter a romantic history which dancers had selected for portrayal.

Lucian of Samosata De saltatione 54

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

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