Icaromenippus, or the Sky-man (15-16)

MENIPPUS

No sooner had I flapped the wing than a great light broke upon me and all that was formerly invisible was revealed. Bending down toward earth, I clearly saw the cities, the people and all that they* were doing, not only abroad but at home, when they thought they were unobserved. I saw Ptolemy lying with his sister, Lysimachus’ son conspiring against his father, Seleucus’ son Antiochus flirting surreptitiously with his stepmother, Alexander of ‘Thessaly getting killed by his wife, Antigonus committing adultery with the wife of his son, and

the son of Attalus pouring out the poison for him. In another quarter I saw Arsaces killing the woman, the eunuch Arbaces drawing his sword on Arsaces, and Spatinus the Mede in the hands of the guards, being dragged out of the dining-room by the leg after having had his head broken with a golden cup.[*] Similar things were to be seen going on in Libya and among the Thracians and Scythians in the palaces of kings—men committing adultery, murdering, conspiring, plundering, forswearing, fearing and falling victims to the treason of their closest kin.

MENIPPUS

Although the doings of the kings afforded me such rare amusement, those of the common people were far more ridiculous, for I could see them too— Hermodorus the Epicurean perjuring himself for a thousand drachmas, the Stoie Agathocles going to law with his disciple about a fee, the orator Clinias stealing a cup out of the Temple of Asclepius and the Cynic Herophilus asleep in the brothel. Why mention the rest of them—the burglars, the bribe-takers, the money-lenders, the beggars? In brief, it was a motley and manifold spectacle.

FRIEND

Really, you might as well tell about that too, Menippus, for it scems to have given you unusual pleasure.

MENIPPUS

To tell it all from first to last, my friend, would be

impossible in such a case, where even to see it all was hard work. However, the principal features were like what Homer says was on the shield.[*] In one place there were banquets and weddings, elsewhere there were sessions of court and assemblics; in a different direction a man was offering sacrifice, and close at hand another was mourning a death. Whenever I looked at the country of the Getae I saw them fighting; whenever I transferred my gaze to the Seythians, they could be seen roving about on their wagons: and when I turned my eyes aside slightly, I beheld the Egyptians working the land. The Phoenicians were on trading-ventures, the Cilicians were engaged in piracy, the Spartans were whipping themselves and the Athenians were attending court.