09 Jan Alexandros (or “Pseudomantis”) and Kokkonas. The two most vicious and insolent, eager for all misdeeds (LUCIAN)
I will begin with a picture of the man himself, as lifelike (though I am not great at description) as I can make it with nothing better than words. In-person — not to forget that part of him — he was a fine handsome man with a real touch of divinity about him, white-skinned, moderately bearded; he wore besides his own hair artificial additions which matched it so cunningly that they were not generally detected. His eyes were piercing, and suggested inspiration, his voice at once sweet and sonorous. In fact, there was no fault to be found with him in these respects.
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So much for externals. As for his mind and spirit — well, if all the kind Gods who avert disaster will grant a prayer, it shall be that they bring me not within reach of such a one as he; sooner will I face my bitterest enemies, my country’s foes. In understanding, resource, acuteness, he was far above other men; curiosity, receptiveness, memory, scientific ability — all these were his in overflowing measure. But he used them for the worst purposes. Endowed with all these instruments of good, he very soon reached a proud preeminence among all who have been famous for evil; the Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus[1] — all thrown into the shade. In a letter to his father-in-law Rutilianus[2], which puts his own pretensions in a truly modest light, he compares himself to Pythagoras[3]. Well, I should not like to offend the wise, the divine Pythagoras; but if he had been Alexander’s contemporary, I am quite sure he would have been a mere child to him. Now by all that is admirable, do not take that for an insult to Pythagoras, nor suppose I would draw a parallel between their achievements. What I mean is: if anyone would make a collection[4] of all the vilest and most damaging slanders ever vented against Pythagoras — things whose truth I would not accept for a moment —, the sum of them would not come within measurable distance of Alexander’s cleverness. You are to set your imagination to work and conceive a temperament curiously compounded of falsehood, trickery, perjury, cunning; it is versatile, audacious, adventurous, yet dogged in execution; it is plausible enough to inspire confidence; it can assume the mask of virtue, and seem to eschew what it most desires. I suppose no one ever left him after a first interview without the impression that this was the best and kindest of men, ay, and the simplest and most unsophisticated. Add to all this a certain greatness in his objects; he never made a small plan; his ideas were always large.
[1] Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus | All famous rascals of antiquity7) before and in the time of Lucian.8)
[2] Rutilianus | Publius Mummius Sisenna Rutilianus – a Roman senator of the second century AD.
[3] Pythagoras | A Greek philosopher and mathematician.
[4] collection | As Iamblichus and Porphyry did, long as Lucian’s time, through the intention of doing honour to Pythagoras by it.9)
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While in the bloom of his youthful beauty, which we may assume to have been great both from its later remains and from the report of those who saw it, he traded quite shamelessly upon it. Among his other patrons was one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations; they will smooth your course of love, confound your enemies, find your treasure, or secure you an inheritance. This person was struck with the lad’s natural qualifications for apprenticeship to his trade, and finding him as much attracted by rascality as attractive in appearance, gave him a regular training as accomplice, satellite, and attendant. His own ostensible profession was medicine[1], and his knowledge included, like that of Thoon the Egyptian’s wife[2],
Many drugs are virtuous herbs, and many are scourges;[3]
to all which inheritance our friend succeeded. This teacher and lover of his was a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius[4], and acquainted with all his heroics. And now you know the atmosphere in which Alexander lived.
[1] medicine | Here we find Alexander as a man addicted to the occult sciences, and, like almost all charlatans of that species, practiced medicine as a cloak and vehicle for them.10)
[2] Thoon the Egyptian’s wife | Thoni. She is said to have been the inventor of physic amongst the Egyptians.11)
[3] Many a virtuous herb, and many a bane | A quote from Homer’s Odyssey, 4.232.12)
[4] Apollonius | Apollonius of Tyana.13)
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By the time his beard had come, the Tyanean[1] was dead, and he found himself in straits; for the personal attractions which might once have been a resource were diminished. He now formed great designs, which he imparted to a Byzantine chronicler of the strolling competitive order[2], a man of still worse character than himself, called, I believe, Cocconas[3] . The pair went about living on occult pretensions, shearing ‘fat-heads,’[4] as they describe ordinary people in the native Magian lingo. Among these they got hold of a rich Macedonian woman; her youth was past, but not her desire for admiration; they got sufficient supplies out of her, and accompanied her from Bithynia to Macedonia[5]. She came from Pella[6], which had been a flourishing place under the Macedonian kingdom, but has now a poor and much-reduced population.
[1] Tyanean | Referring to Apollonius of Tyana
[2] chronicler of the strolling competitive order | Wieland translates this word, λογοποιὸς, which has several possible significations, as “comedy-scribbler” based on its use in Athenaeus.14)
[3] Cocconas | Pomegranate seeds. Perhaps alludes to male testicles.
[4] shearing ‘fat-heads’ | A cunning fellow is a close shearer. Fat-headed fellows is a metaphor for the ignorant or vulgar.15)
[5] Bithynia to Macedonia | From the north coast of Anatolia to northern Greece, or east to west.
[6] Pella | A district in Macedonia, famous for being the birthplace of Philip, who enlarged it, and afterward Alexander the Great.16) Pella was once the seat of the Macedonian kings, but otherwise in Lucian’s time a very insignificant town. In the days of Lucian, it was a Roman colony, under the pompous appellation of Julia Augusta.17)
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There is here a breed of large serpents[1], so tame and gentle that women make pets of them, children take them to bed, they will let you tread on them, have no objection to being squeezed, and will draw milk from the breast like infants. To these facts is probably to be referred the common story about Olympias[2] when she was with child of Alexander; it was doubtless one of these that was her bed-fellow. Well, the two saw these creatures[3] and bought the finest they could get for a few pence.
[1] large serpents | The zoologists mention this species of serpent under the denomination of Serpens Aesculapius, and a smaller race of them is found in Italy, which are reported to be harmless and familiar as the larger ones here in question.18)
[2] Olympias | Alexander the Great’s mother. She is said to have herself given out, that Zeus, in the form of a large serpent, came to her and became father of Alexander.19)
[3] reptiles | The figure of this dragon, as it is called on the coins, which we shall have on farther occasion to mention by and by, perfectly confirms the description of Lucian; for he appears on them as a serpent of extraordinary length and thickness.20)
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And from this point, as Thucydides[1] might say, the war takes its beginning. These ambitious scoundrels were quite devoid of scruples, and they had now joined forces; it could not escape their penetration that human life is under the absolute dominion of two mighty principles, fear and hope and that anyone who can make these serve his ends may be sure of a rapid fortune. They realized that, whether a man is most swayed by the one or by the other, what he must most depend upon and desire is a knowledge of futurity. So were to be explained the ancient wealth and fame of Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae[2]; it was at the bidding of the two tyrants aforesaid that men thronged the temples, longed for fore-knowledge, and to attain it sacrificed their hecatombs or dedicated their golden ingots. All this they turned over and debated, and it issued in the resolve to establish an oracle. If it were successful, they looked for immediate wealth and prosperity; the result surpassed their most sanguine expectations[3].
[1] Thucydides | Along with Herodotus, one of the pre-eminent Greek historians of the fifth century BC.
[2] Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae | Places all famous for the oracles established in them.21) The oracle at Didymi, that was in the possession of a family which derived its pedigree from Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who was endued by that god, for himself and his posterity, with the gift of prophecy.22)
[3] sanguine expectations | To render this scheme of the confederate imposters more comprehensible, it should be understood that serpents, or dragons, had from time immemorial been in the reputation of being divinatorial by nature. The prophetic gift is a quality peculiar to the dragon, says Aelian, Hist. Animal. 11.16. Hence all serpents, as we are assured by Pausanias, in Corinth. cap. 23 but particularly a certain tame and innoxious species of them produced in Epidauria. And for that reason, these animals are frequently found as symbola both of divination and of medicine, which in some measure is a species of the former, on coins, gems, and other ancient monuments. It was particularly usual to represent Aesculapius under this figure, since he, agreeable to a popular tradition, had transferred himself in the shape of a serpent to the Romans on their being commanded by an oracle to fetch this deity from Epidaurus to Rome, for quelling the pestilence that raged in that capital A. U. C. 461, an event, confirmed by no less by poets (Ov. Metam. 15) and historians (Valer. Max. 1.8. Liv 19 and others) than by one of the most beautiful coins described by Spanheim.23)
Lucian
Source: http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:alexander
