ante; and the shadows are illusions mist^on for realities. 

 And wishing to sho\v the admixture oi g'ood and evil in 

 the heart of man, he Bays the soul is a chariot, halving a 

 driver and two winged horses. In a divinit;^ horse© and 

 driver are a.bsolutely good ; other souls are but partly good, 

 and for them one of the horses is good and one ir^ vicious. 



Another classical story-teller of notie was Lucian. Of 

 Sj'rian birt'h, he became a Greek rhetoiician. He well 

 knew the world of his day. And after journeying profes- 

 sionally in Egypt, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, It^ly 

 and Gaul, he settled in Greece to turn his v/it and ac^juire- 

 m.ents to account in righting what seemed out of joint in 

 the life of his times. Ho lived in the days of the Antonines, 

 when Graeco-Roinan life v/as at its best. It was the golden 

 age Gibbons said he would have chosen to live in, had his 

 advent in the world been matter for choice. But for all 

 that, it was a period of unrest and oi transition. Among 

 other changes, the polytheistic religion it-self was declining, 

 and from a century of Christian teaxrliing, and from other 

 causes, shrines at which the multitude had at least form- 

 nlly bowed were becoming de'sertcxi. Lucian, however, afc- 

 r-acked what he deemed the false mythology and philosophy 

 of his age with his own weapons and on a battlefield of his 

 ov.-n choice. His favorite weapon was satire, ozid his blade 

 was so well naado aaid tempered, ojad was so skilfully wield- 

 ed, that the strokes arid rust of centuries have scarcely im- 

 paired its form or blunted its edge. 



His work has comie dow'n to us as dialogues, as narra^ 

 ti^-es made up of realistic incidents, and as old legendB and 

 strange fictions. j\Iany of the dialogues are in reality talcs, 

 with now and again a question by a listener, to serve m> 

 excuse far a new paragraph, or give point to the storj. 

 His "True History," a bit ot fabulous satire aimed at con- 

 temporary writers of history, beggars imitation. Swift's 

 "Gulliver," and Raspe's "Mmichausen" are fair offshoots 

 of the Lucian genus, though lacking the exuberant viixi 

 of the parent stock. The naive opening of the story ia 



21 



