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Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones (possibly born Ynyr Jones;  15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant architect in England in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.

Early life and career
Beyond that he was born in Smithfield, London, as the son of clothworker Inigo Jones Snr., and baptised at the church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, little is known about Jones's early years. Later Welsh sources claim that the family was from Wales, and even that Inigo was originally named Ynir or Ynyr Jones. But no records from his own time indicate any family ties to Wales.

He did not approach the architectural profession in the traditional way, namely either by rising up from a craft or through early exposure to the Office of Works, although there is evidence that Christopher Wren obtained information that recorded Jones as an apprentice joiner in St Paul's Churchyard. At some point before 1603, a rich patron (possibly the Earl of Pembroke or the Earl of Rutland) sent him to Italy to study drawing after being impressed by the quality of his sketches. From Italy he travelled to Denmark where he worked for Christian IV on the design of the palaces of Rosenborg and Frederiksborg.

Jones first became famous as a designer of costumes and stage settings, especially after he brought "masques" to the stage. Under the patronage of Queen Anne of Denmark (the consort of King James I), he is credited with introducing movable scenery and the proscenium arch to English theatre. Between 1605 and 1640, he was responsible for staging over 500 performances, collaborating with Ben Jonson for many years, despite a relationship fraught with competition and jealousy: the two had arguments about whether stage design or literature was more important in theatre. (Jonson ridiculed Jones in a series of his works, written over two decades.) Over 450 drawings for the scenery and costumes survive, demonstrating Jones's virtuosity as a draughtsman and his development between 1605 and 1609 from initially showing "no knowledge of Renaissance draughtsmanship" to exhibiting an "accomplished Italianate manner" and understanding of Italian set design, particularly that of Alfonso and Giulio Parigi. This development suggests a second visit to Italy, c. 1606, influenced by the ambassador Henry Wotton. Jones learned to speak Italian fluently and there is evidence that he owned an Italian copy of Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura with marginalia that refer to Wotton. His architectural work was particularly influenced by Palladio. To a lesser extent, he also held to the architectural principles of the ancient Roman writer Vitruvius.

Jones's first recorded architectural design is for a monument to Frances, Lady Cotton, commissioned by Rowland Cotton, c. 1608–1611, at Norton-in-Hales, Shropshire, showing early signs of his classical intentions. In July 1606, Jones made scenery for a masque at Theobalds for the Earl of Salisbury. In the following years, Jones made drawings for the Earl of Salisbury's New Exchange in the Strand, where work commenced in June 1608, and the central tower of St Paul's Cathedral, displaying a similar practical architectural inexperience and immature handling of themes from sources including Palladio, Serlio and Sangallo. In 1609, having perhaps accompanied Salisbury's son and heir, Viscount Cranborne, around France, he appears as an architectural consultant at Hatfield House, making small modifications to the design as the project progressed, and in 1610, Jones was appointed Surveyor to Prince Henry. He devised the masques the Barriers and the Masque of Oberon for the Prince and was possibly involved in some alterations to St James's Palace.

On 27 April 1613, Jones was appointed the position of Surveyor of the King's Works and shortly after, embarked on a tour of Italy with the Earl of Arundel, destined to become one of the most important patrons in the history of English art. On this trip, Jones was exposed to the architecture of Rome, Padua, Florence, Vicenza, Genoa and Venice among others. His surviving sketchbook shows his preoccupation with such artists as Parmigianino and Andrea Schiavone. He is also known to have met Vincenzo Scamozzi at this time. His annotated copy of Palladio's Quattro libri dell'architettura also demonstrates his close interest in classical architecture: Jones gave priority to Roman antiquity rather than observing the contemporary fashion in Italy. He was probably the first native-born to study these Roman remains first hand and this was key to the new architecture Jones introduced in England and Wales.

Masques
Jones worked as a producer and architect for Masques from 1605 to 1640, but his most known work in this field came from his collaboration with poet and playwright Ben Jonson. Having worked together for fifteen years, the two debated and had disagreements about their line of work and about what was most integral in a masque. While Jonson argued that the most important aspect of a masque was the written word that the audience heard, Jones argued that the visual spectacle was the most important aspect, and that what the audience saw was more important. Jones also felt that the architect had just as much creative freedom and rights as the writer or poet of the masque. In defence of this Jones stated that masques were "nothing but pictures with light and motion," making little to note of the words spoken.

Jones's work on masques with Jonson is credited to be one of the first instances of scenery introduced in theatre. In his masques, curtains were used and placed in between the stage and the audience, and they were to be opened to introduce a scene. Jones was also known for using the stage and theatre space in its entirety, putting his actors throughout different parts of the theatre, such as placing them below the stage or elevating them onto a higher platform. Jones's settings on the stage also incorporated different uses of light, experimenting with coloured glasses, screens and oiled paper to create a softer source of light on the stage.

Jones is also known for introducing to English audiences moving scenery through what is called 'machina versatilis', helping to create motion among a stable scene without any noticeable Stagehands and of creating a representation of the ethereal.

These elements of stage design and of theatre production would later have influence beyond the English court, as those working in the public stage would take up these ideas and apply them to the early modern stage and for its larger audience.

Architecture
In September 1615, Jones was appointed Surveyor-General of the King's Works, marking the beginning of Jones's career in earnest. Fortunately, both James I and Charles I spent lavishly on their buildings, contrasting hugely with the economical court of Elizabeth I. As the King's Surveyor, Jones built some of his key buildings in London. In 1616, work began on the Queen's House, Greenwich, for James I's wife, Anne. With the foundations laid and the first storey built, work stopped suddenly when Anne died in 1619. Jones provided a design for the queen's funeral hearse or catafalque, but it was not implemented. Work at Greenwich resumed in 1629, this time for Charles I's Queen, Henrietta Maria. It was finished in 1635 as the first strictly classical building in England, employing ideas found in the architecture of Palladio and ancient Rome. This is Jones's earliest-surviving work.

Between 1619 and 1622, the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall was built, a design derived from buildings by Scamozzi and Palladio, to which a ceiling painted by Peter Paul Rubens was added several years later. The Whitehall palace was one of several projects where Jones worked with his personal assistant and nephew by marriage John Webb.

The Queen's Chapel, St. James's Palace, was built between 1623 and 1627, initially for Charles I's proposed bride, the Roman Catholic Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, and then for Charles I's wife, Henrietta Maria of France. Parts of the design originate in the Pantheon of ancient Rome and Jones evidently intended the church to evoke the Roman temple. These buildings show the realization of a mature architect with a confident grasp of classical principles and an intellectual understanding of how to implement them.

The other project in which Jones was involved is the design of Covent Garden Square. He was commissioned by the Earl of Bedford to build a residential square, which he did along the lines of the Italian piazza of Livorno. It is the first regularly planned square in London. The Earl felt obliged to provide a church and he warned Jones that he wanted to economise. He told him to simply erect a "barn" and Jones's oft-quoted response was that his lordship would have "the finest barn in Europe". In the design of St Paul's, Jones faithfully adhered to Vitruvius's design for a Tuscan temple and it was the first wholly and authentically classical church built in England. The inside of St Paul's, Covent Garden was gutted by fire in 1795, but externally it remains much as Jones designed it and dominates the west side of the piazza.

Jones also designed the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and a house in the square, the Lindsey House built in 1640, is often attributed to Jones. Its design of a rusticated ground floor with giant pilasters above supporting the entablature and balustrade served as a model for other town houses in London such as John Nash's Regent's Park terraces, as well as in other English and Welsh towns such as Bath's Royal Crescent.

Another large project Jones undertook was the repair and remodelling of St Paul's Cathedral. Between the years of 1634 and 1642, Jones wrestled with the dilapidated Gothicism of Old St Paul's, casing it in classical masonry and totally redesigning the west front. Jones incorporated the giant scrolls from Vignola and della Porta's Church of the Gesù with a giant Corinthian portico, the largest of its type north of the Alps, but the church would be destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Also around this time, circa 1638, Jones devised drawings completely redesigning the Palace of Whitehall, but the execution of these designs was frustrated by Charles I's financial and political difficulties.

More than 1000 buildings have been attributed to Jones but only a very small number of those are certain to be his work. According to architecture historian John Summerson, the modern concept of an architect's artistic responsibility for a building did not exist at that time, and Jones's role in many instances may be that of a civil servant in getting things done rather than as an architect. Jones's contribution to a building may also simply be verbal instructions to a mason or bricklayer and providing an Italian engraving or two as a guide, or the correction of drafts. In the 1630s, Jones was in high demand and, as Surveyor to the King, his services were only available to a very limited circle of people, so often projects were commissioned to other members of the Works. Stoke Bruerne Park in Northamptonshire was built by Sir Francis Crane, "receiving the assistance of Inigo Jones", between 1629 and 1635. Jones is also thought to have been involved in another country house, this time in Wiltshire. Wilton House was renovated from about 1630 onwards, at times worked on by Jones, then passed on to Isaac de Caus when Jones was too busy with royal clients. He then returned in 1646 with his student, John Webb, to try and complete the project. Contemporary equivalent architects included Sir Balthazar Gerbier and Nicholas Stone.

One of Jones's designs is the "double cube" room at Wilton, and it was also the foundation stone of his status as the father of British architecture. Jones, as the pioneer in his era, had strong influence during their time. His revolutionary ideas even effect beyond the Court circle, and today, many scholars believe that he also started the golden age of British architecture.

Political and civic life
On 16 February 1621, in a by-election caused by the ejection of an existing member Sir John Leedes, Jones was elected M.P. in the Parliament of England for New Shoreham in West Sussex, a borough constituency controlled by the Earl of Arundel, and sat till the dissolution of that parliament in February 1622. He was named to a committee to improve lighting and increase seating in the House of Commons' chamber, resulting in a new gallery being erected in St Stephen's Chapel during the summer recess and was also responsible for a new ceiling put in the House of Lords chamber in 1623. He also served as a Justice of the Peace (J.P.) for the county of Middlesex and borough of Westminster from 1630 until at least 1640. He was made a freeman of the borough of Southampton in 1623 and in 1633 was offered, but declined, a knighthood by Charles I.

Later life

Jones's full-time career effectively ended with the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 and the seizure of the King's houses in 1643. Jones was captured at the third siege of Basing House in October 1645. Unfortunately, as one of the last great strongholds to the Cavaliers, the great mansion inside was destroyed by Cromwell's army and even the walls were broken into many pieces. His property was later returned to him (c. 1646) but Jones ended his days, unmarried, living in Somerset House. He was, however, closely involved in the design of Coleshill House, in Berkshire, for the Pratt family, which he visited with the young apprentice architect Roger Pratt, to fix a new site for the proposed mansion. He died on 21 June 1652 and was buried with his parents at St Benet's, Paul's Wharf, the Welsh church of the City of London. John Denham and then Christopher Wren followed him as King's Surveyor of Works. A monument dedicated to him in the church, portraying St Paul's Cathedral and other buildings, was destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666.

Legacy
Jones was an influence on a number of 18th-century architects, notably Lord Burlington and William Kent. There is an Inigo Jones Road in Charlton, southeast London (SE7), near Charlton House, some of whose features were allegedly designed by him.

A bridge in Llanrwst, North Wales, built in 1636 and named "Pont Fawr" is also known locally as "Pont Inigo Jones" (Inigo Jones's Bridge). He is also said to be responsible for the Masonic "Inigo Jones Manuscript", from around 1607, a document of the Old Charges of Freemasonry.

List of architectural works

 * Design for the completion of the central tower, old St Paul's Cathedral, not executed (c. 1608)
 * Design for the New Exchange in the Strand, London, not executed (c.1608)
 * The Queen's House, Greenwich (1616–1619), work suspended on the death of Anne of Denmark completed (1630–1635) for Henrietta Maria of France
 * Design for the Star Chamber building, not executed (1617)
 * Gateway at Oatlands Palace (1617), now at Chiswick House
 * Gateway at Arundel House (1618), demolished
 * Banqueting House, Whitehall (1619–22)
 * Prince's Lodging, Newmarket for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1619), demolished
 * The Queen's Chapel, St. James's Palace (1623–27), for Henrietta Maria of France
 * Fort Amsterdam (1625) – The Dutch East India Company asked Jones to design a stone fortification on the Hudson River, which he did, but the fort was built (by Cryn Fredericks) out of wood instead and was torn down in 1790.
 * The Cockpit Theatre, Palace of Whitehall (1629) demolished
 * Stoke Park Pavilions, Northamptonshire, attributed (c. 1629–35)
 * Somerset House Chapel (1630–35), demolished
 * Covent Garden, London, houses on the north and east side as well as St Paul's, Covent Garden on the west (1631–1637) only the church survives
 * Old St Paul's Cathedral, new west front and remodelling of the nave and transepts (1634–42) destroyed in the Great Fire of London
 * Wilton House, Wiltshire (1636–40) the interior burnt c.1647, rebuilt to the designs of John Webb (1648)
 * Sir Peter Killigrew's House, Blackfriars, London (1630s) not known if built
 * Palace of Whitehall, various schemes for the complete rebuilding of the palace (c. 1637–39)
 * Lord Maltravers's House, Lothbury, London (1638) if built destroyed in the Great Fire of London
 * Temple Bar, London, design for a triumphal arch, not executed (1638)
 * Screen in Winchester Cathedral (c.1638), removed by the dean in 1820, and its central portion is now found in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, incorporated into the building as an architectural feature.
 * Design for a row of houses in Lothbury for Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel (c.1638), destroyed in the Great Fire of London
 * Lindsey House, Lincoln's Inn Fields now numbers 59 & 60, attributed (c. 1638–40)
 * Milton Manor House, Milton, Abingdon, Oxfordshire
 * Coleshill House, Berkshire (designed by Jones and executed by Roger Pratt)

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Talk:Chiswick House

Gardens
The gardens section contains several doubtful facts, for example by mentioning Charles Bridgeman, for whom there is absolutely no contemporary evidence (just an offhand reference in the 1770s to the style being possibly Bridgeman's). The book above under 'Further Reading' contains the latest research, and should lead to a reconsideration and expansion of the gardens section commensurate with their importance to Burlington and to English garden history. 2.139.197.58 (talk) 20:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Yes, the section is unsatisfactory in many ways. The Chiswick House Gardens is a major topic, and deserves its own article, with just a summary of it here, and a 'Main' link. If you are familiar with the topic you would be well placed to write that article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I told him over at Talk:Monastic garden re that. Johnbod (talk) 14:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, maybe he just likes to talk. There must be a word for that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I hope not. His points are good. Johnbod (talk) 15:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It does need work. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I could suggest a new section on the gardens, or prepare a longer article. I'm not to date a Wikipedia contributor, so could you please tell me the best way to proceed? 2.139.197.58 (talk) 21:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You could do a Word doc, & email it to one of us, or just register an account (very quick, & no personal details required), & start a draft in your "sandbox". If you register you get lots of "how to" links, & I'm sure we're both ready to help (from my return from holiday mid-month, in my case). Johnbod (talk) 22:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I've created a new article, Chiswick House Gardens by adding a summary and a few headings to the current sorry text; here in the parent article, Chiswick House, there is a "Main" link to the new gardens article, and the text is reduced to a short summary. Both the summary and the gardens article need work. You will find both Hewlings 1989 and Jacques 2022 at the end of both articles; to insert a page reference, please use the template which creates a navigable reference like [17] in the text, and an entry 17. ^ Jacques 2022, p. 123 in the list of References automatically. You will see that you can link to another Wikipedia article just by using double square brackets, e.g. the text Stowe House creates a named link Stowe House. Any of the existing text that seems to you wrong or muddled can be deleted or reorganised. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Still appear to have the full text in the main article. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 08:30, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think not. The split leaves the parent article still not well cited; both the subsidiary articles, Architecture of Chiswick House and Chiswick House Gardens have the same issue: all need substantial work to bring them up to B class, let alone GA. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Big cat

The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus Panthera, namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard, as well as the non-pantherine cheetah and cougar.

All cats descend from the Felidae family, sharing similar musculature, cardiovascular systems, skeletal frames, and behaviour. Both the cheetah and cougar differ physically from fellow big cats, and to a greater extent, other small cats. As obligate carnivores, big cats are considered apex predators, topping their food chain without natural predators of their own. Native ranges include the Americas, Africa, and Asia; the range of the leopard and tiger also extends into Europe, specifically in Russia.

Species

 * Family Felidae
 * Subfamily Pantherinae
 * Genus Panthera
 * Tiger (Panthera tigris)
 * Lion (Panthera leo)
 * Jaguar (Panthera onca)
 * Leopard (Panthera pardus)
 * Snow leopard (Panthera uncia)
 * Subfamily Felinae
 * Genus Acinonyx
 * Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)
 * Genus Puma
 * Cougar (Puma concolor)

Evolution
It is estimated that the ancestors of most big cats split away from the Felinae about 6.37 million years ago. The Felinae, on the other hand, comprises mostly small to medium-sized cats, including domestic cats, but also some larger cats such as the cougar and cheetah.

A 2010 study published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution has given insight into the exact evolutionary relationships of the big cats. The study reveals that the snow leopard and the tiger are sister species, while the lion, leopard, and jaguar are more closely related to each other. The tiger and snow leopard diverged from the ancestral big cats approximately 3.9 Ma. The tiger then evolved into a unique species towards the end of the Pliocene epoch, approximately 3.2 Ma. The ancestor of the lion, leopard, and jaguar split from other big cats from 4.3–3.8 Ma. Between 3.6 and 2.5 Ma, the jaguar diverged from the ancestor of lions and leopards. Lions and leopards split from one another approximately 2 Ma. The earliest big cat fossil, Panthera blytheae, dating to 4.1−5.95 MA, was discovered in southwest Tibet.

Roaring
The ability to roar comes from an elongated and specially adapted larynx and hyoid apparatus. The larynx is attached to the hyoid bone that is hanging from a sequence of bones. This sequence of bones the hyoid hangs from are tympanohyal, stylohyal, epihyal, and ceratohyal; these are located in the mandible and skull. In the larynx, there are vocal folds that produce the structure needed to stretch the ligament to a length that creates the roar effect. This tissue is made of thick collagen and elastic fiber that becomes denser as it approaches the epithelial mucosal lining. When this large pad folds it creates a low natural frequency, causing the cartilage walls of the larynx to vibrate. When it begins to vibrate the sound moves from a high to low air resistance which makes the roaring.

The lion's larynx is the longest, giving it the most robust roar. The roar in good conditions can be heard 8 or even 10 km (8 or) away. All five extant members of the genus Panthera contain this elongated hyoid but owing to differences in the larynx the snow leopard cannot roar. Unlike the roaring cats in their family, the snow leopard is distinguished by the lack of a large pad of fibro-elastic tissue that allows for a large vocal fold.

Weight range
The range of weights exhibited by the species is large. At the bottom, adult snow leopards usually weigh 22 to 55 kg, with an exceptional specimen reaching 75 kg.

Male and female lions typically weigh 150 - 250 kg and 110 - 182 kg respectively, and male and female tigers 100 - 306 kg and 75 - 167 kg respectively. Exceptionally heavy male lions and tigers have been recorded to exceed 306 kg in the wilderness, and weigh around 1,000 lbs in captivity.

The liger, a hybrid of a lion and tiger, can grow to be much larger than its parent species. In particular, a liger called 'Nook' is reported to have weighed over 550 kg.

Conservation
An animal sanctuary provides a refuge for animals to live out their natural lives in a protected environment. Usually, these animal sanctuaries are the organizations which provide a home to big cats whose private owners are no longer able or willing to care for their big cats. However, the use of the word sanctuary in an organization's name is by itself no guarantee that it is a true animal sanctuary in the sense of a refuge. To be accepted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as a bona fide animal sanctuary and to be eligible for an exemption from the prohibition of interstate movement of big cats under the Captive Wildlife Safety Act (CWSA), organizations must meet the following criteria: Internationally, a variety of regulations are placed on big cat possession. In Austria, big cats may only be owned in a qualified zoo which is overseen by a zoologist or veterinarian. Requirements must also be met for enclosures, feeding, and training practices. Both Russia and South Africa regulate private ownership of big cats native to each country. Some countries, including Denmark, Thailand and India, prohibit all private ownership of big cats.
 * Must be a non-profit entity that is tax-exempt under section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code
 * Cannot engage in commercial trade in big cat species, including their offspring, parts, and products made from them
 * Cannot breed big cats
 * Cannot allow direct contact between big cats and the public at their facilities
 * Must keep records of transactions involving covered cats
 * Must allow the service to inspect their facilities, records, and animals at reasonable hours

Threats
The members of the Panthera genus are classified as some level of threatened by the IUCN Red List: the lion, leopard and snow leopard are categorized as Vulnerable; the tiger is listed as Endangered; and the jaguar is listed as Near Threatened. Cheetahs are also classified as Vulnerable, and the cougar is of Least Concern. All species currently have populations that are decreasing. The principal threats to big cats vary by geographic location but primarily consist of habitat destruction and poaching. In Africa, many big cats are hunted by pastoralists or government "problem animal control" officers. Certain protected areas exist that shelter large and exceptionally visible populations of African leopards, lions and cheetahs, such as Botswana's Chobe, Kenya's Masai Mara, and Tanzania's Serengeti; outside these conservation areas, hunting poses the dominant threat to large carnivores.

In the United States, 19 states have banned ownership of big cats and other dangerous exotic animals as pets, and the Captive Wildlife Safety Act bans the interstate sale and transportation of these animals. The initial Captive Wildlife Safety Act (CWSA) was signed into law on December 19, 2003. To address problems associated with the increasing trade in certain big cat species, the CWSA regulations were strengthened by a law passed on September 17, 2007. The big cat species addressed in these regulations are the lion, tiger, leopard, snow leopard, clouded leopard, cheetah, jaguar, cougar, and any hybrid of these species (liger, tigon, etc.). Private ownership is not prohibited, but the law makes it illegal to transport, sell, or purchase such animals in interstate or foreign commerce. Although these regulations seem to provide a strong legal framework for controlling the commerce involving big cats, international organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have encouraged the U.S. to further strengthen these laws. The WWF is concerned that weaknesses in the existing U.S. regulations could be unintentionally helping to fuel the black market for tiger parts.

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Lucian

Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal. Although his native language was probably Syriac, all of his extant works are written entirely in ancient Greek (mostly in the Attic Greek dialect popular during the Second Sophistic period).

Everything that is known about Lucian's life comes from his own writings, which are often difficult to interpret because of his extensive use of sarcasm. According to his oration The Dream, he was the son of a lower middle class family from the city of Samosata along the banks of the Euphrates in the remote Roman province of Syria. As a young man, he was apprenticed to his uncle to become a sculptor, but, after a failed attempt at sculpting, he ran away to pursue an education in Ionia. He may have become a travelling lecturer and visited universities throughout the Roman Empire. After acquiring fame and wealth through his teaching, Lucian finally settled down in Athens for a decade, during which he wrote most of his extant works. In his fifties, he may have been appointed as a highly paid government official in Egypt, after which point he disappears from the historical record.

Lucian's works were wildly popular in antiquity, and more than eighty writings attributed to him have survived to the present day, a considerably higher quantity than for most other classical writers. His most famous work is A True Story, a tongue-in-cheek satire against authors who tell incredible tales, which is regarded by some as the earliest known work of science fiction. Lucian invented the genre of comic dialogue, a parody of the traditional Socratic dialogue. His dialogue Lover of Lies makes fun of people who believe in the supernatural and contains the oldest known version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Lucian wrote numerous satires making fun of traditional stories about the gods including The Dialogues of the Gods, Icaromenippus, Zeus Rants, Zeus Catechized, and The Parliament of the Gods. His Dialogues of the Dead focuses on the Cynic philosophers Diogenes and Menippus. Philosophies for Sale and The Carousal, or The Lapiths make fun of various philosophical schools, and The Fisherman or the Dead Come to Life is a defense of this mockery.

Lucian often ridiculed public figures, such as the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus in his letter The Passing of Peregrinus and the fraudulent oracle Alexander of Abonoteichus in his treatise Alexander the False Prophet. Lucian's treatise On the Syrian Goddess satirizes cultural distinctions between Greeks and Syrians and is the main source of information about the cult of Atargatis.

Lucian had an enormous, wide-ranging impact on Western literature. Works inspired by his writings include Thomas More's Utopia, the works of François Rabelais, William Shakespeare's Timon of Athens and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

Biographical sources
Lucian is not mentioned in any contemporary texts or inscriptions written by others and he is not included in Philostratus's Lives of the Sophists. As a result of this, everything that is known about Lucian comes exclusively from his own writings. A variety of characters with names very similar to Lucian, including "Lukinos", "Lukianos", "Lucius", and "The Syrian" appear throughout Lucian's writings. These have been frequently interpreted by scholars and biographers as "masks", "alter-egos", or "mouthpieces" of the author. Daniel S. Richter criticizes the frequent tendency to interpret such "Lucian-like figures" as self-inserts by the author and argues that they are, in fact, merely fictional characters Lucian uses to "think with" when satirizing conventional distinctions between Greeks and Syrians. He suggests that they are primarily a literary trope used by Lucian to deflect accusations that he as the Syrian author "has somehow outraged the purity of Greek idiom or genre" through his invention of the comic dialogue. British classicist Donald Russell states, "A good deal of what Lucian says about himself is no more to be trusted than the voyage to the moon that he recounts so persuasively in the first person in True Stories" and warns that "it is foolish to treat [the information he gives about himself in his writings] as autobiography."

Background and upbringing
Lucian was born in the town of Samosata on the banks of the Euphrates on the far eastern outskirts of the Roman Empire. Samosata had been the capital of the kingdom of Commagene until 72 AD when it was annexed by Vespasian and became part of the Roman province of Syria. The population of the town was mostly Syrian and Lucian's native tongue was probably Syriac, a form of Middle Aramaic.

During the time when Lucian lived, traditional Greco-Roman religion was in decline and its role in society had become largely ceremonial. As a substitute for traditional religion, many people in the Hellenistic world joined mystery cults, such as the Mysteries of Isis, Mithraism, the cult of Cybele, and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Superstition had always been common throughout ancient society, but it was especially prevalent during the second century. Most educated people of Lucian's time adhered to one of the various Hellenistic philosophies, of which the major ones were Stoicism, Platonism, Peripateticism, Pyrrhonism, and Epicureanism. Every major town had its own 'university' and these 'universities' often employed professional travelling lecturers, who were frequently paid high sums of money to lecture about various philosophical teachings. The most prestigious center of learning was the city of Athens in Greece, which had a long intellectual history.

According to Lucian's oration The Dream, which classical scholar Lionel Casson states he probably delivered as an address upon returning to Samosata at the age of thirty-five or forty after establishing his reputation as a great orator, Lucian's parents were lower middle class and his uncles owned a local statue-making shop. Lucian's parents could not afford to give him a higher education, so, after he completed his elementary schooling, Lucian's uncle took him on as an apprentice and began teaching him how to sculpt. Lucian, however, soon proved to be poor at sculpting and ruined the statue he had been working on. His uncle beat him, causing him to run off. Lucian fell asleep and experienced a dream in which he was being fought over by the personifications of Statuary and Culture. He decided to listen to Culture and thus sought out an education.

Although The Dream has long been treated by scholars as a truthful autobiography of Lucian, its historical accuracy is questionable at best. Classicist Simon Swain calls it "a fine but rather apocryphal version of Lucian's education" and Karin Schlapbach calls it "ironical". Richter argues that it is not autobiographical at all, but rather a prolalia (προλᾰλιά), or playful literary work, and a "complicated meditation on a young man's acquisition of paideia" [i.e. education]. Russell dismisses The Dream as entirely fictional, noting, "We recall that Socrates too started as sculptor, and Ovid's vision of Elegy and Tragedy (Amores 3.1) is all too similar to Lucian's."

Education and career
In Lucian's Double Indictment, the personification of Rhetoric delivers a speech in which she describes the unnamed defendant, who is described as a "Syrian" author of transgressive dialogues, at the time she found him, as a young man wandering in Ionia in Anatolia "with no idea what he ought to do with himself". She describes "the Syrian" at this stage in his career as "still speaking in a barbarous manner and all but wearing a caftan [kandys] in the Assyrian fashion". Rhetoric states that she "took him in hand and ... gave him paideia".

Scholars have long interpreted the "Syrian" in this work as Lucian himself and taken this speech to mean that Lucian ran away to Ionia, where he pursued his education. Richter, however, argues that the "Syrian" is not Lucian himself, but rather a literary device Lucian uses to subvert literary and ethnic norms.

Ionia was the center of rhetorical learning at the time. The most prestigious universities of rhetoric were in Ephesus and Smyrna, but it is unlikely that Lucian could have afforded to pay the tuition at either of these schools. It is not known how Lucian obtained his education, but somehow he managed to acquire an extensive knowledge of rhetoric as well as classical literature and philosophy.

Lucian mentions in his dialogue The Fisherman that he had initially attempted to apply his knowledge of rhetoric and become a lawyer, but that he had become disillusioned by the deceitfulness of the trade and resolved to become a philosopher instead. Lucian travelled across the Empire, lecturing throughout Greece, Italy, and Gaul. In Gaul, Lucian may have held a position as a highly paid government professor.

In around 160, Lucian returned to Ionia as a wealthy celebrity. He visited Samosata and stayed in the east for several years. He is recorded as having been in Antioch in either 162 or 163. In around 165, he bought a house in Athens and invited his parents to come live with him in the city. Lucian must have married at some point during his travels because in one of his writings, he mentions having a son at this point.

Lucian lived in Athens for around a decade, during which time he gave up lecturing and instead devoted his attention to writing. It was during this decade that Lucian composed nearly all his most famous works. Lucian wrote exclusively in Greek, mainly in the Attic Greek popular during the Second Sophistic, but On the Syrian Goddess, which is attributed to Lucian, is written in a highly successful imitation of Herodotus' Ionic Greek, leading some scholars to believe that Lucian may not be the real author.

For unknown reasons, Lucian stopped writing around 175 and began travelling and lecturing again. During the reign of Emperor Commodus (180–192), the aging Lucian may have been appointed to a lucrative government position in Egypt. After this point, he disappears from the historical record entirely, and nothing is known about his death.

Views

Lucian's philosophical views are difficult to categorize due to his persistent use of irony and sarcasm. In The Fisherman, Lucian describes himself as a champion of philosophy and throughout his other writings he characterizes philosophy as a morally constructive discipline, but he is critical of pseudo-philosophers, whom he portrays as greedy, bad-tempered, sexually immoral hypocrites. Lucian was not known to be a member of any of the major philosophical schools. In his Philosophies for Sale, he makes fun of members of every school. Lucian was critical of Stoicism and Platonism, because he regarded them as encouraging superstition. His Nigrinus superficially appears to be a "eulogy of Platonism", but may, in fact, be satirical, or merely an excuse to ridicule Roman society.

Nonetheless, at other times, Lucian writes approvingly of individual philosophies. According to Turner, although Lucian makes fun of Skeptic philosophers, he displays a temperamental inclination towards that philosophy. Edwyn Bevan identifies Lucian as a Skeptic, and in his Hermotimus, Lucian rejects all philosophical systems as contradictory and concludes that life is too short to determine which of them comes nearest to the truth, so the best solution is to rely on common sense, which was what the Pyrrhonian Skeptics advocated. The maxim that "Eyes are better witnesses than ears" is echoed repeatedly throughout several of Lucian's dialogues.

Lucian was skeptical of oracles, though he was by no means the only person of his time to voice such skepticism. Lucian rejected belief in the paranormal, regarding it as superstition. In his dialogue The Lover of Lies, he probably voices some of his own opinions through his character Tychiades, perhaps including the declaration by Tychiades that he does not believe in daemones, phantoms, or ghosts because he has never seen such things. Tychiades, however, still professes belief in the gods' existence:

According to Everett Ferguson, Lucian was strongly influenced by the Cynics. The Dream or the Cock, Timon the Misanthrope, Charon or Inspectors, and The Downward Journey or the Tyrant all display Cynic themes. Lucian was particularly indebted to Menippus, a Cynic philosopher and satirist of the third century BC. Lucian wrote an admiring biography of the philosopher Demonax, who was a philosophical eclectic, but whose ideology most closely resembled Cynicism. Demonax's main divergence from the Cynics was that he did not disapprove of ordinary life. Paul Turner observes that Lucian's Cynicus reads as a straightforward defense of Cynicism, but also remarks that Lucian savagely ridicules the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus in his Passing of Peregrinus.

Lucian also greatly admired Epicurus, whom he describes in Alexander the False Prophet as "truly holy and prophetic". Later, in the same dialogue, he praises a book written by Epicurus: "What blessings that book creates for its readers and what peace, tranquillity, and freedom it engenders in them, liberating them as it does from terrors and apparitions and portents, from vain hopes and extravagant cravings, developing in them intelligence and truth, and truly purifying their understanding, not with torches and squills [i. e. sea onions] and that sort of foolery, but with straight thinking, truthfulness and frankness."

Lucian had a generally negative opinion of Herodotus and his historiography, which he viewed as faulty.

Works
Over eighty works attributed to Lucian have survived. These works belong to a diverse variety of styles and genres, and include comic dialogues, rhetorical essays, and prose fiction. Lucian's writings were targeted towards a highly educated, upper-class Greek audience and make almost constant allusions to Greek cultural history, leading the classical scholar R. Bracht Branham to label Lucian's highly sophisticated style "the comedy of tradition". By the time Lucian's writings were rediscovered during the Renaissance, most of the works of literature referenced in them had been lost or forgotten, making it difficult for readers of later periods to understand his works.

A True Story

Lucian was one of the earliest novelists in Western civilization. In A True Story (Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα), a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodies some of the fantastic tales told by Homer in the Odyssey and also the not-so-fantastic tales from the historian Thucydides. He anticipated modern science fiction themes including voyages to the moon and Venus, extraterrestrial life, interplanetary warfare, and artificial life, nearly two millennia before Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. The novel is often regarded as the earliest known work of science fiction.

The novel begins with an explanation that the story is not at all "true" and that everything in it is, in fact, a complete and utter lie. The narrative begins with Lucian and his fellow travelers journeying out past the Pillars of Heracles. Blown off course by a storm, they come to an island with a river of wine filled with fish and bears, a marker indicating that Heracles and Dionysus have traveled to this point, and trees that look like women. Shortly after leaving the island, they are caught up by a whirlwind and taken to the Moon, where they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun over colonization of the Morning Star. Both armies include bizarre hybrid lifeforms. The armies of the Sun win the war by clouding over the Moon and blocking out the Sun's light. Both parties then come to a peace agreement. Lucian then describes life on the Moon and how it is different from life on Earth.

After returning to Earth, the adventurers are swallowed by a 200-mile-long whale, in whose belly they discover a variety of fish people, whom they wage war against and triumph over. They kill the whale by starting a bonfire and escape by propping its mouth open. Next, they encounter a sea of milk, an island of cheese, and the Island of the Blessed. There, Lucian meets the heroes of the Trojan War, other mythical men and animals, as well as Homer and Pythagoras. They find sinners being punished, the worst of them being the ones who had written books with lies and fantasies, including Herodotus and Ctesias. After leaving the Island of the Blessed, they deliver a letter to Calypso given to them by Odysseus explaining that he wishes he had stayed with her so he could have lived eternally. They then discover a chasm in the Ocean, but eventually sail around it, discover a far-off continent and decide to explore it. The book ends abruptly with Lucian stating that their future adventures will be described in the upcoming sequels, a promise which a disappointed scholiast described as "the biggest lie of all".

Satirical dialogues
In his Double Indictment, Lucian declares that his proudest literary achievement is the invention of the "satirical dialogue", which was modeled on the earlier Platonic dialogue, but was comedic in tone rather than philosophical. The prolaliai to his Dialogues of the Courtesans suggests that Lucian acted out his dialogues himself as part of a comedic routine. Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead (Νεκρικοὶ Διάλογοι) is a satirical work centering around the Cynic philosophers Diogenes and his pupil Menippus, who lived modestly while they were alive and are now living comfortably in the abysmal conditions of the Underworld, while those who had lived lives of luxury are in torment when faced by the same conditions. The dialogue draws on earlier literary precursors, including the nekyia in Book XI of Homer's Odyssey, but also adds new elements not found in them. Homer's nekyia describes transgressors against the gods being punished for their sins, but Lucian embellished this idea by having cruel and greedy persons also be punished.

In his dialogue The Lover of Lies (Φιλοψευδὴς), Lucian satirizes belief in the supernatural and paranormal through a framing story in which the main narrator, a skeptic named Tychiades, goes to visit an elderly friend named Eukrates. At Eukrates's house, he encounters a large group of guests who have recently gathered together due to Eukrates suddenly falling ill. The other guests offer Eukrates a variety of folk remedies to help him recover. When Tychiades objects that such remedies do not work, the others all laugh at him and try to persuade him to believe in the supernatural by telling him stories, which grow increasingly ridiculous as the conversation progresses. One of the last stories they tell is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which the German playwright Goethe later adapted into a famous ballad.

Lucian frequently made fun of philosophers and no school was spared from his mockery. In the dialogue Philosophies for Sale, Lucian creates an imaginary slave market in which Zeus puts famous philosophers up for sale, including Pythagoras, Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates, Chrysippus, and Pyrrho, each of whom attempts to persuade the customers to buy his philosophy. In The Banquet, or Lapiths, Lucian points out the hypocrisies of representatives from all the major philosophical schools. In The Fisherman, or the Dead Come to Life, Lucian defends his other dialogues by comparing the venerable philosophers of ancient times with their unworthy contemporary followers. Lucian was often particularly critical of people who pretended to be philosophers when they really were not and his dialogue The Runaways portrays an imposter Cynic as the antithesis of true philosophy. His Symposium is a parody of Plato's Symposium in which, instead of discussing the nature of love, the philosophers get drunk, tell smutty tales, argue relentlessly over whose school is the best, and eventually break out into a full-scale brawl. In Icaromenippus, the Cynic philosopher Menippus fashions a set of wings for himself in imitation of the mythical Icarus and flies to Heaven, where he receives a guided tour from Zeus himself. The dialogue ends with Zeus announcing his decision to destroy all philosophers, since all they do is bicker, though he agrees to grant them a temporary reprieve until spring. Nektyomanteia is a dialogue written in parallel to Icaromenippus in which, rather than flying to Heaven, Menippus descends to the underworld to consult the prophet Tiresias.

Lucian wrote numerous dialogues making fun of traditional Greek stories about the gods. His Dialogues of the Gods (Θεῶν Διάλογοι) consists of numerous short vignettes parodying a variety of the scenes from Greek mythology. The dialogues portray the gods as comically weak and prone to all the foibles of human emotion. Zeus in particular is shown to be a "feckless ruler" and a serial adulterer. Lucian also wrote several other works in a similar vein, including Zeus Catechized, Zeus Rants, and The Parliament of the Gods. Throughout all his dialogues, Lucian displays a particular fascination with Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who frequently appears as a major character in the role of an intermediary who travels between worlds. The Dialogues of the Courtesans is a collection of short dialogues involving various courtesans. This collection is unique as one of the only surviving works of Greek literature to mention female homosexuality. It is also unusual for mixing Lucian's characters from other dialogues with stock characters from New Comedy; over half of the men mentioned in Dialogues of the Courtesans are also mentioned in Lucian's other dialogues, but almost all of the courtesans themselves are characters borrowed from the plays of Menander and other comedic playwrights.

Treatises and letters
Lucian's treatise Alexander the False Prophet describes the rise of Alexander of Abonoteichus, a charlatan who claimed to be the prophet of the serpent-god Glycon. Though the account is satirical in tone, it seems to be a largely accurate report of the Glycon cult and many of Lucian's statements about the cult have been confirmed through archaeological evidence, including coins, statues, and inscriptions. Lucian describes his own meeting with Alexander in which he posed as a friendly philosopher, but, when Alexander invited him to kiss his hand, Lucian bit it instead. Lucian reports that, aside from himself, the only others who dared challenge Alexander's reputation as a true prophet were the Epicureans (whom he lauds as heroes) and the Christians.

Lucian's treatise On the Syrian Goddess is a detailed description of the cult of the Syrian goddess Atargatis at Hierapolis (now Manbij). It is written in a faux-Ionic Greek and imitates the ethnographic methodology of the Greek historian Herodotus, which Lucian elsewhere derides as faulty. For generations, many scholars doubted the authenticity of On the Syrian Goddess because it seemed too genuinely reverent to have really been written by Lucian. More recently, scholars have come to recognize the book as satirical and have restored its Lucianic authorship.

In the treatise, Lucian satirizes the arbitrary cultural distinctions between "Greeks" and "Assyrians" by emphasizing the manner in which Syrians have adopted Greek customs and thereby effectively become "Greeks" themselves. The anonymous narrator of the treatise initially seems to be a Greek Sophist, but, as the treatise progresses, he reveals himself to actually be a native Syrian. Scholars dispute whether the treatise is an accurate description of Syrian cultural practices because very little is known about Hierapolis other than what is recorded in On the Syrian Goddess itself. Coins minted in the late fourth century BC, municipal decrees from Seleucid rulers, and a late Hellenistic relief carving have confirmed Lucian's statement that the city's original name was Manbog and that the city was closely associated with the cults of Atargatis and Hadad. A Jewish rabbi later listed the temple at Hierapolis as one of the five most important pagan temples in the Near East.

Macrobii ("Long-Livers") is an essay about famous philosophers who lived for many years. It describes how long each of them lived, and gives an account of each of their deaths. In his treatises Teacher of Rhetoric and On Salaried Posts, Lucian criticizes the teachings of master rhetoricians. His treatise On Dancing is a major source of information about Greco-Roman dance. In it, he describes dance as an act of mimesis ("imitation") and rationalizes the myth of Proteus as being nothing more than an account of a highly skilled Egyptian dancer. He also wrote about visual arts in Portraits and On Behalf of Portraits. Lucian's biography of the philosopher Demonax eulogizes him as a great philosopher and portrays him as a hero of parrhesia ("boldness of speech"). In his treatise, How to Write History, Lucian criticizes the historical methodology used by writers such as Herodotus and Ctesias, who wrote vivid and self-indulgent descriptions of events they had never actually seen. Instead, Lucian argues that the historian never embellish his stories and should place his commitment to accuracy above his desire to entertain his audience. He also argues the historian should remain absolutely impartial and tell the events as they really happened, even if they are likely to cause disapproval. Lucian names Thucydides as a specific example of a historian who models these virtues.

In his satirical letter Passing of Peregrinus (Περὶ τῆς Περεγρίνου Τελευτῆς), Lucian describes the death of the controversial Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus, who had publicly immolated himself on a pyre at the Olympic Games of AD 165. The letter is historically significant because it preserves one of the earliest pagan evaluations of Christianity. In the letter, one of Lucian's characters delivers a speech ridiculing Christians for their perceived credulity and ignorance, but he also affords them some level of respect on account of their morality.

In the letter Against the Ignorant Book Collector, Lucian ridicules the common practice whereby Near Easterners collect massive libraries of Greek texts for the sake of appearing "cultured", but without actually reading any of them.

Pseudo-Lucian
Some of the writings attributed to Lucian, such as the Amores and the Ass, are usually not considered genuine works of Lucian and are normally cited under the name of "Pseudo-Lucian". The Ass (Λούκιος ἢ ῎Oνος) is probably a summarized version of a story by Lucian, and contains largely the same basic plot elements as The Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses) of Apuleius, but with fewer inset tales and a different ending. Amores is usually dated to the third or fourth centuries based on stylistic grounds.

Byzantine
Lucian is mentioned only sporadically between his death and the ninth century, even among pagan authors. The first author to mention him is Lactantius. He is made a character in the sixth-century letters of Aristaenetus. In the same century, portions of his On Slander were translated into Syriac as part of a monastic compendium. He was reassessed positively in the ninth century by the first generation of Byzantine humanists, such as Leo the Mathematician, Basil of Adada and Photios. In his Bibliotheca, Photios notes that Lucian "ridicules pagan things in almost all his texts", is never serious and never reveals his own opinion.

In the tenth century, Lucian was known in some circles as an anti-Christian writer, as seen in the works of Arethas of Caesarea and the Suda encyclopedia. The authors of the Suda concludes that Lucian's soul is burning in Hell for his negative remarks about Christians in the Passing of Peregrinus. In general, however, the Byzantine reception of Lucian was positive. He was perhaps the only ancient author openly hostile to Christianity to be received positively by the Byzantines. He was regarded as not merely a pagan, but an atheist. Even so, "Lucian the atheist gave way to Lucian the master of style." From the eleventh century, he was a part of the school curriculum.

There was a "Lucianic revival" in the twelfth century. The preeminent Lucianic author of this period, who imitated Lucian's style in his own works, was Theodore Prodromos. In the Norman–Arab–Byzantine culture of twelfth-century Sicily, Lucian influenced the Greek authors Philagathus of Cerami and Eugenius of Palermo.

Renaissance and Reformation
In the West, Lucian's writings were mostly forgotten during the Middle Ages. When they were rediscovered in the West around 1400, they immediately became popular with the Renaissance humanists. By 1400, there were just as many Latin translations of the works of Lucian as there were for the writings of Plato and Plutarch. By ridiculing plutocracy as absurd, Lucian helped facilitate one of Renaissance humanism's most basic themes. His Dialogues of the Dead were especially popular and were widely used for moral instruction. As a result of this popularity, Lucian's writings had a profound influence on writers from the Renaissance and the Early Modern period.

Many early modern European writers adopted Lucian's lighthearted tone, his technique of relating a fantastic voyage through a familiar dialogue, and his trick of constructing proper names with deliberately humorous etymological meanings. During the Protestant Reformation, Lucian provided literary precedent for writers making fun of Catholic clergy. Desiderius Erasmus's Encomium Moriae (1509) displays Lucianic influences. Perhaps the most notable example of Lucian's impact in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was on the French writer François Rabelais, particularly in his set of five novels, Gargantua and Pantagruel, which was first published in 1532. Rabelais also is thought to be responsible for a primary introduction of Lucian to the French Renaissance and beyond through his translations of Lucian's works.

Lucian's True Story inspired both Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). Sandro Botticelli's paintings The Calumny of Apelles and Pallas and the Centaur are both based on descriptions of paintings found in Lucian's works. Lucian's prose narrative Timon the Misanthrope was the inspiration for William Shakespeare's tragedy Timon of Athens and the scene from Hamlet with the gravediggers echoes several scenes from Dialogues of the Dead. Christopher Marlowe's famous verse "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" is a paraphrase of a quote from Lucian. Francis Bacon called Lucian a "contemplative atheist".

Early modern period

Henry Fielding, the author of The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), owned a complete set of Lucian's writings in nine volumes. He deliberately imitated Lucian in his Journey from This World and into the Next and, in The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743), he describes Lucian as "almost... like the true father of humour" and lists him alongside Miguel de Cervantes and Jonathan Swift as a true master of satire. In The Convent Garden Journal, Fielding directly states in regard to Lucian that he had modeled his style "upon that very author". Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, François Fénelon, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, and Voltaire all wrote adaptations of Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead. According to Turner, Voltaire's Candide (1759) displays the characteristically Lucianic theme of "refuting philosophical theory by reality". Voltaire also wrote The Conversation between Lucian, Erasmus and Rabelais in the Elysian Fields, a dialogue in which he treats Lucian as "one of his masters in the strategy of intellectual revolution".

Denis Diderot drew inspiration from the writings of Lucian in his Socrates Gone Mad; or, the Dialogues of Diogenes of Sinope (1770) and his Conversations in Elysium (1780). Lucian appears as one of two speakers in Diderot's dialogue Peregrinus Proteus (1791), which was based on The Passing of Peregrinus. Lucian's True Story inspired Cyrano de Bergerac, whose writings later served as inspiration for Jules Verne. The German satirist Christoph Martin Wieland was the first person to translate the complete works of Lucian into German and he spent his entire career adapting the ideas behind Lucian's writings for a contemporary German audience. David Hume admired Lucian as a "very moral writer" and quoted him with reverence when discussing ethics or religion. Hume read Lucian's Kataplous or Downward Journey when he was on his deathbed. Herman Melville references Lucian in Chapter 5 of The Confidence-Man, Book 26 of Pierre, and Chapter 13 of Israel Potter.

Modern period
Thomas Carlyle's epithet "Phallus-Worship", which he used to describe the contemporary literature of French writers such as Honoré de Balzac and George Sand, was inspired by his reading of Lucian. Kataplous, or Downward Journey also served as the source for Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch or Overman. Nietzsche declaration of a "new and super-human way of laughing – at the expense of everything serious!" echoes the exact wording of Tiresias's final advice to the eponymous hero of Lucian's dialogue Menippus: "Laugh a great deal and take nothing seriously." Professional philosophical writers since then have generally ignored Lucian, but Turner comments that "perhaps his spirit is still alive in those who, like Bertrand Russell, are prepared to flavor philosophy with wit."

Many 19th century and early 20th century classicists viewed Lucian's works negatively. The German classicist Eduard Norden admitted that he had, as a foolish youth, wasted time reading the works of Lucian, but, as an adult, had come to realize that Lucian was nothing more than an "Oriental without depth or character... who has no soul and degrades the most soulful language". Rudolf Helm, one of the leading scholars on Lucian in the early twentieth century, labelled Lucian as a "thoughtless Syrian" who "possesses none of the soul of a tragedian" and compared him to the poet Heinrich Heine, who was known as the "mockingbird in the German poetry forest". In his 1906 publication Lukian und Menipp ("Lucian and Menippus"), Helm argued that Lucian's claims of generic originality, especially his claim of having invented the comic dialogue, were actually lies intended to cover up his almost complete dependence on Menippus, whom he argued was the true inventor of the genre.

Lucian's Syrian identity received renewed attention in the early twenty-first century as Lucian became seen as what Richter calls "a sort of Second Sophistic answer to early twenty-first-century questions about cultural and ethnic hybridity". Richter states that Postcolonial critics have come to embrace Lucian as "an early imperial paradigm of the 'ethno-cultural hybrid.'"

Editions

 * ; volume II; volume III; volume IV.
 * ; volume II.
 * Lucian's True History, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, William Strang, and J. B. Clark, privately printed in an edition of 251 copies, 1894.
 * ; volume II; volume III; volume IV.
 * Lucian with an English translation (Loeb Classical Library), in 8 volumes: vols. 1–5 ed. Austin Morris Harmon (1913, 1915, 1921, 1925, 1936); vol. 6 ed. K. Kilburn (1959); vol. 7–8 ed. Matthew Donald Macleod (1961, 1967).
 * Neil Hopkinson (ed.), Lucian: A Selection. Cambridge Greek and Latin Texts (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

title: Lucian


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Handshake

A handshake is a globally widespread, brief greeting or parting tradition in which two people grasp one of each other's hands, and in most cases, it is accompanied by a brief up-and-down movement of the grasped hands. Customs surrounding handshakes are specific to cultures. Different cultures may be more or less likely to shake hands, or there may be different customs about how or when to shake hands.

History
The handshake may have originated in prehistory as a demonstration of peaceful intent, since it shows that the hand holds no weapon. Another possibility is that it originated as a symbolic gesture of mutual commitment to an oath or promise: two hands clasping each other represents the sealing of a bond. One of the earliest known depictions of a handshake is an ancient Assyrian relief of the 9th century BC depicting the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III shaking the hand of the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I to seal an alliance. Archaeological ruins and ancient texts show that handshaking was practiced in ancient Greece (where it was called dexiosis) as early as the 5th century BC. For example, a depiction of two soldiers shaking hands can be found on part of a 5th-century BC funerary stele that is on display in Berlin's Pergamon Museum (stele SK1708) and on other funerary steles, such as one from the 4th century BC that depicts Thraseas and his wife Euandria shaking hands. Depictions of handshakes also appear in Archaic Greek, Etruscan and Roman funerary and non-funerary art. Muslim scholars have written that the custom of handshaking was introduced to them by the people of Yemen.

Modern customs

There are various customs surrounding handshakes, both generally and specific to certain cultures:

The handshake is commonly done upon meeting, greeting, parting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or as a public sign of completing a business or diplomatic agreement. In sports, it is also done as a sign of good sportsmanship. Its purpose is to convey trust, respect, balance, and equality. If it is done to form an agreement, the agreement is not official until the hands are parted.

Unless health issues or local customs dictate otherwise, a handshake is made usually with bare hands. It depends on the situation.

By geographic location

 * In Anglophone countries, handshaking is common in business situations. In casual non-business situations, men are more likely to shake hands than women.
 * In the United States and the United Kingdom a traditional handshake is firm, executed with the right hand, with good posture and eye contact. A handshake where both parties are stood up is deemed as good etiquette.
 * Austrians shake hands when meeting, often including with children.
 * In the Netherlands and Belgium, handshakes are done more often, especially on meeting.
 * In Denmark, the final step in acquiring Danish citizenship is a ceremony at which a handshake with a local official is specifically required (gloves may not be worn).
 * In Norway, where a firm handshake is preferred, people most often shake hands when agreeing on deals, in private and business relations.
 * In Russia, a handshake is performed between men and rarely performed by women.
 * In Switzerland, it may be expected to shake the women's hands first.
 * In Israel, handshakes are standard among Jews (other than ultra-religious Jews, between genders), but not among Arabs.
 * In some countries such as Turkey or the Arabic-speaking Middle East, handshakes are not as firm as in the West. Consequently, a grip that is too firm is rude.
 * Moroccans will give a soft handshake to someone of the same gender, along with one kiss on each cheek (lips don't touch the cheek unless they are family). The handshake may be followed by lightly touching one's heart with one's right hand.
 * In Armenia, handshakes are the most common greetings between men, optionally followed by a kiss on the cheek if the two parties have a close relationship.  Traditionally, a woman needs to wait for the man to present his hand for the handshake. Women usually greet each other with hugs and a kiss on the cheek.
 * In China, age is considered important in handshake etiquette, and older people should be greeted with a handshake before others. A weak handshake is also preferred, but people shaking hands often hold on to each other's hands for an extended period after the initial handshake.
 * In Japan, there is not a tradition of shaking hands and it is preferred to formally bow to each other (with hands open by their sides). Japanese people may greet foreigners with a handshake; foreigners are advised to let Japanese people initiate any handshakes, and a weak handshake is preferred. A curious exception are so-called handshake events.
 * In Korea, a senior person will initiate a handshake, which is preferred to be weak. It is a sign of respect to grasp the right arm with the left hand when shaking hands. It is considered disrespectful to put the free hand in one's pocket while shaking hands. Bowing is the preferred and conventional way of greeting a person in Korea.
 * In Thailand, handshaking is only done if the traditional wai is not offered. When a person offers a wai, placing their palms together at chest level and bowing, this is then returned, with men saying “Sawadee-krap” and women saying “Sawadee-kah” (both mean “Hello").
 * In India and several nearby countries, the respectful Namaste gesture, sometimes combined with a slight bow, is traditionally used in place of handshakes. Handshakes are preferred in business and other formal settings.
 * In some areas of Africa, handshakes are continually held to show that the conversation is between the two talking. If they are not shaking hands, others are permitted to enter the conversation.
 * Masai men in Africa greet one another by a subtle touch of palms of their hands for a very brief moment of time.
 * In Liberia, the snap handshake is customary in which the two shakers snap their fingers against each other at the conclusion of the handshake.
 * In Ethiopia, it is considered rude to use the left hand during a handshake. While greeting the elderly or a person in authority, it is also customary to accompany the handshake with a bow and the left hand supporting the right.
 * In Indonesia, it is considered rude to use one's left hand as it is a hand designated for unclean duties. A medium to soft handshake grip is sufficient, since gripping too hard could be considered rude or an act of aggression.

Other

 * Related to a handshake but more casual, some people prefer a fist bump. Typically the fist bump is done with a clenched hand. Only the knuckles of the hand are typically touched to the knuckles of the other person's hand. Unlike the formality of a handshake, the fist bump is typically not used to seal a business deal or in formal business settings.
 * The hand hug is a type of handshake popular with politicians, as it can present them as being warm, friendly, trustworthy and honest. This type of handshake involves covering the clenched hands with the remaining free hand, creating a sort of "cocoon".
 * In the sport of fencing, after the Olga Kharlan handshaking incident in 2023, the International Fencing Federation changed its rules so that the previously required handshakes between fencers at the end of a bout would become optional, with a distance greeting permitted instead.

Germ spreading
Handshakes are known to spread a number of microbial pathogens. Certain diseases such as scabies are known to spread most frequently through direct skin-to-skin contact. A medical study has found that fist bumps and high fives spread fewer germs than handshakes. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the dean of medicine at the University of Calgary, Tomas Feasby, suggested that fist bumps may be a "nice replacement of the handshake" in an effort to prevent transmission of the virus.

Following a 2010 study that showed that only about 40% of doctors and other health care providers complied with hand hygiene rules in hospitals, Mark Sklansky, a doctor at UCLA hospital, decided to test "a handshake-free zone" as a method for limiting the spread of germs and reducing the transmission of disease. UCLA did not ban the handshakes outright, but rather suggested other options such as fist bumping, smiling, bowing, waving, and non-contact Namaste gestures. Other sources suggest raised brows, wai bow, two claps, hand over heart, sign language wave, or the shaka sign.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries and organisations adopted policies encouraging people to use alternative modes of greeting instead of a handshake. Suggested alternatives included the elbow bump, the fist bump, foot tapping or non-contact actions for social distancing purposes, such as fist-and-palm or namaste gesture. Footshaking was also suggested.

Chemosignaling
It has been discovered as a part of research at Israel's Weizmann Institute that human handshakes serve as a means of transferring social chemical signals between the shakers. It appears that there is a tendency to bring the shaken hands to the vicinity of the nose and smell them. They may serve an evolutionary need to learn about the person whose hand was shaken, replacing a more overt sniffing behavior, as is common among animals and in certain human cultures (such as Tuvalu, Greenland or rural Mongolia, where a quick sniff is part of the traditional greeting ritual).

World records
In 1963, Lance Dowson shook 12,500 individuals' hands in $10 1/2$ hours, in Wrexham, N. Wales. Atlantic City, New Jersey Mayor Joseph Lazarow was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for a July 1977 publicity stunt, in which the mayor shook more than 11,000 hands in a single day, breaking the record previously held by President Theodore Roosevelt, who had set the record with 8,510 handshakes at a White House reception on January 1, 1907.

On 27 May 2008, Kevin Whittaker and Cory Jens broke the Guinness World Record for the World's Longest Handshake (single hand) in San Francisco, California, by shaking hands for 9 hours and 30 minutes, besting the previous record of 9 hours and 19 minutes set in 2006. This record stood briefly until 16 August 2008 when Kirk Williamson and Richard McCulley were recognized by Guinness World Records for the longest time two people shook hands uninterruptedly for 10 hours at Aloha Stadium in Aiea, Hawaii. On 21 September 2009, Jack Tsonis and Lindsay Morrison then broke that record by shaking hands for 12 hours, 34 minutes and 56 seconds. Their record was broken less than a month later in Claremont, California, when John-Clark Levin and George Posner shook hands for 15 hours, 15 minutes, and 15 seconds. The next month, on 21 November, Matthew Rosen and Joe Ackerman surpassed this feat, with a new world record time of 15 hours, 30 minutes and 45 seconds.

At 8 p.m. EST on Friday 14 January 2011 a new attempt at the longest hand-shake commenced in New York City's Times Square and the existing record was broken by semi-professional world record-breaker Alastair Galpin.

On 29 January 2020, a new world record for the longest handshaking relay was set by approximately 1,817 people in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, at Umm Al Emarat Park in an event organized by the Abu Dhabi Police to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the signing of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in the city.

title: Handshake


text:
Holding hands

Holding hands is a form of physical intimacy involving two or more people. It may or may not be romantic. Couples often hold hands while walking together outdoors.

Cultural aspects

In Western culture, spouses and romantic couples often hold hands as a sign of affection or to express psychological closeness. Non-romantic friends may also hold hands, although acceptance of this varies by culture and gender role. Parents or guardians may hold the hands of small children to exercise guidance or authority. In terms of romance, handholding is often used in the early stages of dating or courtship to express romantic interest in a partner. Handholding is also common in advanced stages of a romantic relationship where it may be used to signify or seek solace and reassurance.

Same-sex couples may avoid holding hands in public due to homophobia. In 2012, an average of 74% of gay men and 51% of lesbian women responded to an EU Fundamental Rights Agency survey saying they avoid holding hands in public for fear of harassment or assault. These responses varied from 45% to 89% depending on country, with an average of 66%.

In Arab countries, North Africa, some parts of Asia and traditionally in some Mediterranean and Southern European cultures (especially in Sicily), males also hold hands for friendship and as a sign of respect; a custom which is especially noticed by societies unused to it, for instance when, in 2005, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia held hands with the United States President George W. Bush.

Physical and psychological aspects
According to Tiffany Field, the director of the Touch Research Institute, holding hands stimulates the vagus nerve, which decreases blood pressure and heart rate and puts people in a more relaxed state.

title: Holding hands