On the first reading of Lucian of Samosata

June 30th, 2024

I get lucky like that. I still get lucky like that a lot. I get lucky like that by discovering something that has been around for millennia and is well known to experts and hobbyists — but is brand new for me. I am sure that many a historian or literary critic or ancient philologist would give a lot for the ability to go back and read the works of Lucian of Samosata for the first time again — how much joy of discovery and deep wonderment and pure pleasure that would bring again! Well, they cannot, and I just did — so I am the lucky one, again!

Of course, I heard and read his name a lot during my readings and what I read and heard was interesting enough for me to remember and pay attention to. But not so much to actually get a book and start reading myself. It was always the way back on my want-to-read list. And my want-to-read list is huge and constantly growing and changing with priorities and interests. But a couple of days ago I finally got to read his works and was astounded.

Or maybe not that astounded, but something clicked in my head to prove the point I had been carrying in me for a while. And that point is that we as humans haven't really changed much (or at all) in our mental and emotional development since we first became anatomically modern human beings. Reading the works of Lucian of Samosata from almost 2000 years ago, I see the same irony, the same barely consoled disgust with academia and politicians and the unwashed mob, the same sarcasm, and the same sense of humor that wouldn’t be out of place in any writing today — in books, essays or blogs. Hell, I find in his writings from 2000 years ago the same themes and the same treatment of the issues that I have been putting down in my writings. Nothing has changed in our brains for millenniums — we only advance technologically, but our minds are the same as they were in proto-modern societies. It would be good to remember that human mental and emotional development is NOT linear.