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Lucian of Samosata

Lucian of Samosata

c. 125 CE–c. 180 CE · Samosata

Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – after c. 180 CE) was a Syrian-born Greek-language satirist and rhetorician associated with the Second Sophistic. A native of Samosata on the Euphrates and a native Aramaic speaker, he acquired a Greek literary education, trained as a rhetorician, and traveled widely as a sophist giving public lectures before settling into a literary career; he reportedly held an administrative post under the Roman prefect of Egypt late in life. He is best known for prose satires and comic dialogues that mock philosophical schools, religious credulity, and literary pretension, including works such as the "Dialogues of the Dead," "A True Story," and "Philosophies for Sale." His blend of Attic prose with the traditions of Old Comedy and Menippean satire made him influential on later European satirical writing.

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SamosataCommagene (Asia Minor)

What they did here

Born c.125 CE at Samosata, capital of Commagene on the Euphrates; he repeatedly calls himself a Syrian and 'barbarian.' His apprenticeship to a sculptor uncle there is told in 'The Dream' (Somnium).

About Samosata

Capital of the small kingdom of Commagene on the upper Euphrates, remembered above all as the hometown of Lucian, the brilliant satirist who wrote in dazzling Greek though he came from this far eastern frontier.

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Lucian of Samosata’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Lucian of Samosata’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(71)