of Samosata Lucian

Born in Samosata in Roman Syria around 120 CE, Lucian wrote in Greek and became one of antiquity’s great satirists. More than seventy works are attributed to him, many built as witty dialogues that poke fun at philosophers, religious frauds, social climbers, and the powerful.

His best-known pieces include Dialogues of the Dead, Dialogues of the Gods, A True Story, and The Lover of Lies. Across them, he mixed humor, fantasy, and skepticism in a way that later writers found hugely influential; A True Story is even sometimes described as an early ancestor of science fiction.

Details of his life are limited and not always certain, but he appears to have trained first as a sculptor before turning to rhetoric and writing. What survives most clearly is his voice: clever, irreverent, and remarkably fresh for a writer whose work dates to the second century.