This is a selection of pieces by the Greek satirist Lucian. Lucian invented the comic dialogue as a satiric tool, and had immense influence on many later European literatures. He is also extremely funny, whether puncturing the pretensions of pompous philosophers or describing the daily lives of Greek courtesans. The translation aims to be lively and modern in idiom, while maintaining accuracy.

The Greek satirist Lucian was a brilliantly entertaining writer who invented the comic dialogue as a vehicle for satiric comment. This lively new translation is both accurate and idiomatic, and the introduction highlights Lucian's importance in his own and later times.

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. His genial mockery, aimed at man's omnipresent feelings, has never gone out of date. The jabs he gave the hypocrites; grandstanders, fakers and boobs of the ancient world can just as appropriately be administered to their counterparts in the modern world.Lucian's most typical genre is a parody of a Platonic dialogue, in which Zeus, Hermes, Eros, and other Olympians jabber in undivine harassment as some clever mortal (who very much resembles Lucian) is about to make scandalous fools of them. He also excelled at straight narrative, his two most famous tales being the elaborate science fiction spoof; "A True Story," and an old folk tale retold outrageously, "Lucius the Ass." His works were the product of an unrelentingly rational and skeptical mind, and have had an incalculable effect on writers and painters through the ages.Until this volume, the English language reader of today to appreciate the importance and intelligence of Lucian. No volume of representative selections in translation is in print. There are satisfactory versions of the complete works, but the reader who takes this long will most likely lose a good deal of the sting of Lucian's needle. Lionel Cassen also illustrates the full range of Lucian's subject matter and various literary forms and when translating tried to focus on the Greek spirit as opposed to the literal meaning.

A handful of fragments is all that remains of the writings of Menippus, the third-century BCE provocateur of the Greek Cynic movement. The Western literary tradition knows him through Lucian, the Greek satirist who lived and worked four hundred years later. Included in this book are Joel Relihan’s lively English translations of Lucian’s three reanimations of Menippus—fantastic narratives and comic dialogues set in heaven and hell: Menippus; or, The Consultation of the CorpsesIcaromenippus; or, A Man above the CloudsThe Colloquies of the Corpses (Dialogues of the Dead) For the first time in over fifty years, these works are assembled in a unified format to tell a particular story: Lucian’s evolving understanding of the philosophical and literary potential of the person, productions, and purposes of Menippus. Not only is it time to give Lucian’s Menippus a fresh look and a thorough reevaluation, but also to consider how Lucian’s imitations and innovations adumbrate, illuminate, and complicate the history of that enigmatic genre, Menippean satire.