Over eighty works attributed to Lucian have survived. These works belong to a diverse variety of styles and genres, and include comic dialogues, rhetorical essays, and prose fiction. Lucian's writings were targeted towards a highly educated, upper-class Greek audience and make almost constant allusions to Greek cultural history, leading the classical scholar R. Bracht Branham to label Lucian's highly sophisticated style "the comedy of tradition". By the time Lucian's writings were rediscovered during the
Renaissance, most of the works of literature referenced in them had been lost or forgotten, making it difficult for readers of later periods to understand his works.
A True Story depicting a battle scene from Book One of Lucian's novel
A True Story Lucian was one of the earliest novelists in
Western civilization. In
A True Story (), a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodies some of the fantastic tales told by
Homer in the
Odyssey and also the not-so-fantastic tales from the historian
Thucydides. He anticipated modern
science fiction themes including voyages to the moon and Venus,
extraterrestrial life, interplanetary warfare, and artificial life, nearly two millennia before
Jules Verne and
H. G. Wells. The novel is often regarded as the earliest known work of science fiction. The novel begins with an explanation that the story is not at all "true" and that everything in it is, in fact, a complete and utter lie. The narrative begins with Lucian and his fellow travelers journeying out past the
Pillars of Heracles. Blown off course by a storm, they come to an island with a river of wine filled with fish and bears, a marker indicating that
Heracles and
Dionysus have traveled to this point, and trees that look like women. Shortly after leaving the island, they are caught up by a whirlwind and taken to the
Moon, where they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun over colonization of the
Morning Star. Both armies include bizarre hybrid lifeforms. The armies of the Sun win the war by clouding over the Moon and blocking out the Sun's light. Both parties then come to a peace agreement. Lucian then describes life on the Moon and how it is different from life on Earth. After returning to Earth, the adventurers are swallowed by a 200-mile-long whale, in whose belly they discover a variety of fish people, whom they wage war against and triumph over. They kill the whale by starting a bonfire and escape by propping its mouth open. Next, they encounter a sea of milk, an island of cheese, and the
Island of the Blessed. There, Lucian meets the heroes of the
Trojan War, other mythical men and animals, as well as Homer and
Pythagoras. They find sinners being punished, the worst of them being the ones who had written books with lies and fantasies, including
Herodotus and
Ctesias. After leaving the Island of the Blessed, they deliver a letter to
Calypso given to them by
Odysseus explaining that he wishes he had stayed with her so he could have lived eternally. They then discover a chasm in the Ocean, but eventually sail around it, discover a far-off continent and decide to explore it. The book ends abruptly with Lucian stating that their future adventures will be described in the upcoming sequels, a promise which a disappointed
scholiast described as "the biggest lie of all".
Satirical dialogues In his
Double Indictment, Lucian declares that his proudest literary achievement is the invention of the "satirical dialogue", which he modeled on the earlier
Platonic dialogue, but made comedic in tone rather than philosophical. The to his
Dialogues of the Courtesans suggests that Lucian acted out his dialogues himself as part of a comedic routine. Lucian's
Dialogues of the Dead () is a satirical work centering around the
Cynic philosophers
Diogenes and his pupil
Menippus, who lived modestly while they were alive and are now living comfortably in the abysmal conditions of the Underworld, while those who had lived lives of luxury are in torment when faced by the same conditions. The dialogue draws on earlier literary precursors, including the in Book XI of Homer's
Odyssey, but also adds new elements not found in them. Homer's describes transgressors against the gods being punished for their sins, but Lucian embellished this idea by having cruel and greedy persons also be punished. , the messenger of the gods, a major recurring character throughout many of Lucian's dialogues. In his dialogue
The Lover of Lies (), Lucian satirizes belief in the
supernatural and
paranormal through a
framing story in which the main narrator, a skeptic named Tychiades, goes to visit an elderly friend named Eukrates. At Eukrates's house, he encounters a large group of guests who have recently gathered together due to Eukrates suddenly falling ill. The other guests offer Eukrates a variety of
folk remedies to help him recover. When Tychiades objects that such remedies do not work, the others all laugh at him and try to persuade him to believe in the supernatural by telling him stories, which grow increasingly ridiculous as the conversation progresses. One of the last stories they tell is "
The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which the German playwright
Goethe later adapted into a famous ballad. Lucian frequently made fun of philosophers, sparing no school from his mockery. In the dialogue
Philosophies for Sale, Lucian creates an imaginary slave-market in which
Zeus puts famous philosophers up for sale, including Pythagoras, Diogenes,
Heraclitus,
Socrates,
Chrysippus, and
Pyrrho, each of whom attempts to persuade the customers to buy his philosophy. In
The Banquet, or Lapiths, Lucian points out the hypocrisies of representatives from all the major philosophical schools. In
The Fisherman, or the Dead Come to Life, Lucian defends his other dialogues by comparing the venerable philosophers of ancient times with their unworthy contemporary followers. Lucian was often particularly critical of people who pretended to be philosophers when they really were not, and his dialogue
The Runaways portrays an imposter Cynic as the antithesis of true philosophy. In his
Symposium, a parody of Plato's
Symposium, instead of discussing the nature of love, philosophers get drunk, tell smutty tales, argue relentlessly over whose school is the best, and eventually break out into a full-scale brawl. In ''
, the Cynic philosopher Menippus fashions a set of wings for himself in imitation of the mythical Icarus and flies to Heaven, where he receives a guided tour from Zeus himself. Zeus announces his decision to destroy all philosophers, since all they do is bicker, though he agrees to grant them a temporary reprieve until spring. Nektyomanteia
is a dialogue written in parallel to Icaromenippus'' in which, rather than flying to Heaven, Menippus descends to the underworld to consult the prophet
Tiresias. Lucian wrote numerous dialogues making fun of traditional Greek stories about the gods. His
Dialogues of the Gods () consists of numerous short vignettes parodying a variety of scenes from
Greek mythology. The dialogues portray the gods as comically weak and prone to all the foibles of human emotion. Zeus in particular is shown as a "feckless ruler" and as a serial adulterer. Lucian also wrote several other works in a similar vein, including
Zeus Catechized,
Zeus Rants, and
The Parliament of the Gods. Throughout all his dialogues, Lucian displays a particular fascination with
Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who frequently appears as a major character in the role of an intermediary who travels between worlds.
The Dialogues of the Courtesans is a collection of short dialogues involving various courtesans. This collection is unique as one of the only surviving works of Greek literature to mention female homosexuality. It is also unusual for mixing Lucian's characters from other dialogues with stock characters from
New Comedy; over half of the men mentioned in
Dialogues of the Courtesans are also mentioned in Lucian's other dialogues, but almost all of the courtesans themselves are characters borrowed from the plays of
Menander and of other comedic playwrights.
Treatises and letters Lucian's treatise
Alexander the False Prophet describes the rise of Alexander of Abonoteichus, a charlatan who claimed to be the prophet of the serpent-god
Glycon. Though the account is satirical in tone, it seems to be a largely accurate report of the Glycon cult and many of Lucian's statements about the cult have been confirmed through archaeological evidence, including coins, statues, and inscriptions. Lucian describes his own meeting with Alexander in which he posed as a friendly philosopher, but, when Alexander invited him to kiss his hand, Lucian bit it instead. Lucian reports that, aside from himself, the only others who dared challenge Alexander's reputation as a true prophet were the
Epicureans (whom he lauds as heroes) and the Christians. Lucian's treatise
On the Syrian Goddess is a detailed description of the cult of the Syrian goddess
Atargatis at Hierapolis (now
Manbij). It is written in a faux-Ionic Greek and imitates the ethnographic methodology of the Greek historian Herodotus, which Lucian elsewhere derides as faulty. For generations, many scholars doubted the authenticity of
On the Syrian Goddess because it seemed too genuinely reverent to have really been written by Lucian. More recently, scholars have come to recognize the book as satirical and have restored its Lucianic authorship. In the treatise, Lucian satirizes the arbitrary cultural distinctions between "Greeks" and "Assyrians" by emphasizing the manner in which Syrians have adopted Greek customs and thereby effectively become "Greeks" themselves. The anonymous narrator of the treatise initially seems to be a Greek Sophist, but, as the treatise progresses, he reveals himself to actually be a native Syrian. Scholars dispute whether the treatise is an accurate description of Syrian cultural practices because very little is known about Hierapolis other than what is recorded in
On the Syrian Goddess itself. Coins minted in the late fourth century BC, municipal decrees from
Seleucid rulers, and a late Hellenistic relief carving have confirmed Lucian's statement that the city's original name was
Manbog and that the city was closely associated with the cults of Atargatis and
Hadad. A Jewish
rabbi later listed the temple at Hierapolis as one of the five most important pagan temples in the Near East.
Macrobii ("Long-Livers") is an essay about famous philosophers who lived for many years. It describes how long each of them lived, and gives an account of each of their deaths. In his treatises
Teacher of Rhetoric and
On Salaried Posts, Lucian criticizes the teachings of master rhetoricians. His treatise
On Dancing is a major source of information about Greco-Roman dance. In it, he describes dance as an act of
mimesis ("imitation") and rationalizes the myth of
Proteus as being nothing more than an account of a highly skilled Egyptian dancer. He also wrote about visual arts in
Portraits and
On Behalf of Portraits. Lucian's biography of the philosopher
Demonax eulogizes him as a great philosopher and portrays him as a hero of
parrhesia ("boldness of speech"). In his treatise,
How to Write History, Lucian criticizes the historical methodology used by writers such as Herodotus and Ctesias, who wrote vivid and self-indulgent descriptions of events they had never actually seen. Instead, Lucian argues that the historian never embellish his stories and should place his commitment to accuracy above his desire to entertain his audience. He also argues the historian should remain absolutely impartial and tell the events as they really happened, even if they are likely to cause disapproval. Lucian names Thucydides as a specific example of a historian who models these virtues. In his satirical letter
Passing of Peregrinus (), Lucian describes the death of the controversial Cynic philosopher
Peregrinus Proteus, who had publicly
immolated himself on a pyre at the
Olympic Games of AD 165. The letter is historically significant because it preserves one of the earliest pagan evaluations of Christianity. In the letter, one of Lucian's characters delivers a speech ridiculing Christians for their perceived credulity and ignorance, but he also affords them some level of respect on account of their morality. In the letter
Against the Ignorant Book Collector, Lucian ridicules the common practice whereby Near Easterners collect massive libraries of Greek texts for the sake of appearing "cultured", but without actually reading any of them.
Pseudo-Lucian Some of the writings attributed to Lucian, such as the
Amores and the
Ass, are usually not considered genuine works of Lucian and are normally cited under the name of "Pseudo-Lucian". The
Ass () is probably a summarized version of a story by Lucian, and contains largely the same basic plot elements as
The Golden Ass (or
Metamorphoses) of
Apuleius, but with fewer inset tales and a different ending.
Amores is usually dated to the third or fourth centuries based on stylistic grounds. ==Legacy==