The works of Lucian are generally regarded as forming a part of Roman
literature, although they were written in Greek by a native of Samosata
in Syria. In them we have an intermingling of the warm imagination of
the East with the cold sceptical philosophy of the West. Lucian was
originally brought up to be a stone-cutter, but he had an insatiable
desire for learning, and in his "Dream" he tells us how he seemed to be
carried aloft on the wings of Pegasus. He became a pleader at the bar,
but soon found that "deceit, lies, impudence, and chicanery" were
inseparable from that profession. In disgust he betook himself to
philosophy, but could not restrain his indignation when he found so many
base men throwing the blame of their conduct on Plato, Chrysippus,
Pythagoras, and other great men. "A fellow who tells you that the wise
man alone is rich, comes the next moment and asks you for money--just as
if a person in regal array should go about begging." He says they pay no
more attention to the doctrines they teach than if their words were
tennis balls to play with in schools. "There is," he continues, "a story
told of a certain king of Egypt, who took a fancy to have apes taught to
dance. The apes, as they are apt to mimic human actions, came on in
their lessons and improved very fast, and were soon fit to appear on the
public stage, and display their skill, dressed in purple robes, with
masks on their faces. The spectators were much pleased with them for a
considerable time, when a wag who was present, having brought with him a
quantity of nuts, threw a handful amongst them. The dance was
immediately forgotten, and the performers from pyrrhic dancers, relapsed
into apes, who went chattering and snapping at one another, and fighting
for nuts; so that in a few moments the masks were crumpled, the clothes
torn to rags, and the ape dance, which had been so much extolled,
terminated amidst peals of laughter. Such is the history of mock
philosophers."