1. LIFE

With the exception of a very small number of statements, of which the
truth is by no means certain, all that we know of Lucian is derived
from his own writings. And any reader who prefers to have his facts at
first rather than at second hand can consequently get them by reading
certain of his pieces, and making the natural deductions from them.
Those that contain biographical matter are, in the order corresponding
to the periods of his life on which they throw light, _The Vision,
Demosthenes, Nigrinus, The Portrait-study_ and _Defence_ (in which
Lucian is _Lycinus_), _The Way to write History, The double ndictment_
(in which he is _The Syrian_), _The Fisher_ (_Parrhesiades_), _Swans
and Amber, Alexander_, Hermotimus_ (_Lycinus_), _Menippus and
Icaromenippus_ (in which _Menippus_ represents him), _A literary
Prometheus, Herodotus, Zeuxis, Harmonides, The Scythian_, The Death of
Peregrine, The Book-fancier, Demonax, The Rhetorician's Vade mecum,
Dionysus, Heracles, A Slip of the Tongue, Apology for 'The dependent
Scholar.'_ Of these _The Vision_ is a direct piece of autobiography;
there is intentional but veiled autobiography in several of the other
pieces; in others again conclusions can be drawn from comparison of
his statements with facts known from external sources.

Lucian lived from about 125 to about 200 A.D., under the Roman
Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and
perhaps Pertinax. He was a Syrian, born at Samosata on the Euphrates,
of parents to whom it was of importance that he should earn his living
without spending much time or money on education. His maternal uncle