He opened a new field, and the
larger portion of these productions in Greek were written about this
time. They are not generally humorous, with the exception of a few from
Philo and Leonidas of Alexandria who lived about 60 B.C., from
Ammianus in 120 B.C., and from Lucilius, a great composer of
this kind, of whose history nothing is known but that he lived in the
reign of Nero. The following are from the last-mentioned.

"Some say, Nicylla, that thou dyest thy hair, which thou boughtest most
black at the market."

"All the astrologers prophesied that my uncle would be long-lived except
Hermocleides, who said he would not be so. This, however, was not until
we were lamenting his death."

The following are free translations from the same writer.

"Poor Cleon out of envy died,
His brother thief to see
Nailed near him to be crucified
Upon a higher tree."

On a bad painter.

"You paint Deucalion and Phaeton,
And ask what price for each you should require;
I'll tell you what they're worth before you've done,
One deserves water, and the other fire."

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 sk