For my part, I should like to ask you what
you say to those who free possessed men from their
terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I
need not discuss this: everyone knows about the
Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it, A scholiast takes this as a reference to Christ, but he is surely in error. The Syrian is Lucian’s contemporary, and probably not a Christian at all. Exorcists were common then. 2 1.¢. the “ideas,” how many he.
takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon
and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam;
nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends
them, away normal in mind, delivering them from
their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside
them as they lie there and asks: ‘Whence came
you into his body?’ the patient himself is silent,
but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of
whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how
and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by
adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one
coming out, black and smoky in colour.” “It is
nothing much,” I remarked, “for you, Ion, to see
that kind of sight, when even the ‘ forms’? that the
father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to
you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose
eyes are weak.”
 
“Why, is Ion the only one who has seen that kind
of sight?” said Eucrates. “Have not many others
encountered spirits, some at night and some by day?
For myself, I have seen such things, not merely once
but almost hundreds of times. At first I was
disturbed by them, but now, of course, because of


 

their familiarity, I do not consider that I am seeing
anything out of the way, especially since the Arab
gave me the ring made of iron from crosses and
taught me the spell of many names. But perhaps
you will doubt me also, Tychiades.” “How could I
doubt Eucrates, the son of Deinon,” said I, “alearned
and an uncommonly independent gentleman, expressing his opinions in his own home, with complete
liberty?”

 
“Anyhow,” said Eucrates, “the affair of
the statue was observed every night by everybody
in the house, boys, young men and old men, and
you could hear about it not only from me but from
all our people.”” “Statue!” said I, ‘what do you
mean?” 
“Have you not observed on coming in,’ said he,
“avery fine statue set up in the hall, the work of
Demetrius, the maker of portrait-statues?” “Do
you mean the discus-thrower,”’ said I, “the one bent
over in the position of the throw, with his head
turned back toward the hand that holds the discus,
with one leg slightly bent, looking as if he would
spring up all at once with the cast?” “Not that
one,” said he, “for that is one of Myron’s works, the
discus-thrower you speak of. Neither do I mean the
one beside it, the one binding his head with the
fillet, the handsome Jad, for that is Polycleitus’ work.
Never mind those to the right as you come in, among
which stand the tyrant-slayers, modelled’ by Critius
and Nesiotes; but if you noticed one beside the
fountain, pot-bellied, bald on the forehead, half
bared by the hang of his cloak, with some of the
hairs of his beard wind-blown and his veins prominent,
the image of a real man, that is the one I mean;

 

he is thought to be Pellichus, the Corinthian
general.” Probably the Pellichus named as the father of Aristeus, a Corinthian general in the expedition against Epidamnus in 434 B.c. The statue would thus be about contemporary with that of Simon by the same Demetrius of Alopece, which is mentioned in Aristophanes. It is surprisingly realistic for so early a period. Furtwangler thought the description inaccurate, but the statue may have been the work of some later Demetrius. Certainly its identification as a portrait of Pellichus was conjectural (δοκεῖ). 

 

“Yes,” I said, “I saw one to the right of the spout,
wearing fillets and withered wreaths, his breast
covered with gilt leaves.” “I myself puton the gilt
leaves,’ said Eucrates, “when he cured me of the
ague that was torturing me to death every other day.”
“Really, is our excellent Pellichus a doctor also?”
said I. “Do not mock,” Eucrates replied, “or before
long the man will punish you. I know what virtue
there is in this statue that you make fun of. Don’t
you suppose that he can send fevers upon whomsoever
he will, since it is possible for him to send them
away?” “May the manikin be gracious and
kindly,” said I, “since he is so manful. But what
else does everyone in the house see him doing?” 
“As soon as night comes,” he said, “he gets down
from the pedestal on which he stands and goes all
about the house; we all encounter him, sometimes
singing, and he has never harmed anybody. One has
but to turn aside, and he passes without molesting in
any way those who saw him. Upon my word, he
often takes baths and disports himself all night, so
that the water can be heard splashing.”

“See here,
then,” said I, “perhaps the statue is not Pellichus
but Talos the Cretan, the son of Minos; he was a


 

bronze man, you know, and made the rounds in Crete.
If he were made of wood instead of bronze, there
would be nothing to hinder his being one of the
devices of Daedalus instead of a work of Demetrius;
anyhow, he is like them in playing truant from his
pedestal, by what you say.”

 

“See here, Tychiades,”
said he, “‘perhaps you will be sorry for your joke
later on.



 I know what happened to the man who
stole the obols that we offer him on the first of each
month.” “It ought to have been something very
dreadful,” said Ion, “since he committed a sacrilege.
How was he punished, Eucrates? I should like to
hear about it, no matter how much Tychiades here
is going to doubt it.” 
“A number of obols,” he said, “were lying at his
feet, and some other small coins of silver had been
stuck to his thigh with wax, and leaves of silver,
votive offerings or payment for a cure from one or
another of those who through him had ceased to be
subject to fever. We had a plaguy Libyan servant,
a groom; the fellow undertook to steal and did steal
everything that was there, at night, after waiting
until the statue had descended. But as soon as
Pellichus came back and discovered that he had been
robbed, mark how he punished and exposed the
Libyan! The unhappy man ran about the hall the
whole night long unable to get out, just as if he had
been thrown into a labyrinth, until finally he was
caught in possession of the stolen property when
daycame. He got a sound thrashing then, on being
caught, and he did not long survive the incident,
dying a rogue’s death from being flogged, he said,
every night, so that welts showed on his body the


 

next day. In view of this, Tychiades, mock Pellichus
and think me as senile as if I were a contemporary
of Minos!” “Well, Eucrates,” I said, “as long as
bronze is bronze and the work a product of Demetrius
of Alopece, who makes men, not gods, I shall never
be afraid of the statue of Pellichus, whom I should
not have feared very much even when he was alive
if he threatened me.”