Alexander the False Prophet (52-55)

Again, to someone else who was not there and did not exist at all, he said in prose: “Go back; he who sent you was killed to-day by his neighbour Diocles, with the help of the bandits Magnus, Celer, and Bubalus, who already have been caught and imprisoned.”

I may say too that he often gave oracles to barbarians, when anyone put a question in his native language, in Syrian or in Celtic; since he readily found strangers in the city who belonged to the same nation as his questioners. That is why the time between the presentation of the scrolls and the delivery of the oracle was long, so that in the interval the questions might be unsealed at leisure without risk and men might be found who would be able to translate them fully. Of this sort was the response given to the Scythian:

Morphen eubargoulis eis skian chnechikrage leipsei phaos.[*]

Let me also tell you a few of the responses that were given to me. When I asked whether Alexander was bald, and sealed the question carefully and conspicuously, a “nocturnal” oracle was appended:

Sabardalachou malachaattealos en.[*]

Cytmis[*] I bid you apply, combined with the spume of a charger.

Make not your journey by sea, but travel afoot by the highway.

Many such traps, in fact, were set for him by me and by others. For example, I put a single question, and wrote upon the outside of the scroll, following the usual form: “Eight questions from So-and-so,”’ using a fictitious name and sending the eight drachmas and whatever it came to besides.[*] Rely-

Low-voiced walks in the dusk are his pleasure, and impious matings.

And generally, I was of course the man he most hated. When he discovered that I had entered the city and ascertained that I was the Lucian of whom he had heard (I had brought, I may add, two soldiers with me, a pikeman and a spearman borrowed from the Governor of Cappadocia, then a friend of mine, to escort me to the sea), he at once sent for me very politely and with great show of friendliness. When I went, I found many about him; but I had brought along my two soldiers, as luck would have it. He extended me his right hand to kiss, as his custom was with the public; I clasped it as if to kiss it, and almost crippled it with a right good bite!

The bystanders tried to choke and beat me for sacrilege; even before that, they had been indignant because I had addressed him as Alexander and not as Prophet.” But he mastered himself very hand-