Lucian, born in Syria in the second century C.E., came to Greece at an early age and mastered its language and literature. He took up law, left it for public speaking, then turned to full-time writing, producing the wide range of subject matter and literary form which is represented...
The unsurpassed satirist of the ancient era was a young Syrian named Lucian, who, writing in Greek in the second century a.d., combined wit, irony, fearless candor, and exuberant comic fantasy to create the triumphantly irreverent dialogues and stories contained in this book...