Peregrinos Lukiana z Samosat – szaleństwo w krzywym zwierciadle satyry
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Date
2013-12-30
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Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk
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Peregrinus of Lucian of Samosata – madness in the distorting satire
Abstract
The work The Passing of Peregrinus by Lucian of Samosata presents a picture of a pseudo-philosopher , who
under the disguise of Cynic asceticism and courageous death, hid such an extraordinary desire for fame and
publicity that it took on a pathological size. This morbid craving for popularity that he acquired by any possible
means finally brought Peregrinus to suicidal death, although, in fact, he did not really want it. What Lucian did
not approve of his conduct was falseness, cheap theatrical claptrap, using human simplicity and warm-heartedness.
Lucian damasks in a brutal way the unbound craving for publicity from which all actins of Peregrinus
stemmed. By removing a tragic mask from his face Lucian pinpoints his ridiculousness and ugliness. It was
the pursuit of popularity that brought Peregrinus to destruction. His self-immolation, however, was not viewed
upon by Lucian as an act of heroism, but merely as a grotesque and miserable ending of an equally grotesque
and deplorable life.
Description
The character of Peregrinus , a Cynic philosopher has been known particularly for Lucian’s
mocking dialogue entitled The Passing of Peregrinus as well as for several mentions in his writings.
This dialogue is classed as an aggressive satire aiming specifically at one, specific individual,
who is presented as a mad, kind of possessed person, whose madness, however, deserves neither
mercy nor sympathy.
The event that made Lucian wage such a violent attack was the death of that particular man in
165 A.D. in Olympia just after the Olympic Games. It was at that time that he committed suicide in extremely dramatic circumstances cremating himself in the flames in full view of the audience.
The reason he did it was, as he had claimed himself, to teach people contempt for death and
endurance in suffering. He compared his life and effort to the life and achievements of Heracles
and that is why he chose a similar death. The deed of Peregrinus arose admiration and gave him
extraordinary publicity, but, in Lucian’s view, it only proved human gullibility, stupidity and pursuit
of cheap publicity.
Lucian refers to Peregrinus as “mad, crazy”, and his suicide is referred to as stupidity combined
with madness. Neither in his act of suicide nor in his entire life did he find noble motives,
but only exuberant craving for fame or publicity at any cost. All Peregrinus’s actions stemmed
from vanity, which brought him eventually to his last act of despair. While presenting the history
of Peregrinus, Lucian tells us about him having murdered his father, his flight from his native town
and then about him joining a Christian community and abuse of goodness and simple-mindedness
of those people, who considered him an extremely wise and pious follower of Christ. Afterwards,
he mentions his activity as a wandering Cynic philosopher, who while deliberately insulting the
Emperor tried to provoke his anger or irritation of the Emperor’s governors on one hand and admiration
and enchantment of common people on the other one. As he did not get that way the publicity
he expected, he decided to practice Cynic asceticism in its most extreme, sometimes obscene,
form. However, this type of conduct did not make his famous as he expected, but brought about
mere laughter and sneering instead. It is for that reason that he chose one if the most crowded gathering
all over Hellas i.e. the Olympic Games, where he made an attempt to get attention of others.
All those acts stemmed from a pathological desire for fame even at the cost of imprisonment
or exile. However, when such methods failed and he lost face in Olympia losing recognition in the
eyes of local residents and exposing himself to their sneering, he made his last desperate attempt
to regain popularity by means of spectacular suicide.
In Lucian’s eyes such unbounded desire for fame takes on the form of madness, which despite
its being grotesque, deserves sharp contempt and derision. That particular fierceness shown in his
attacks at Peregrinus stemmed from the fact that his conduct was in conflict with the three principles
Lucian adhered to i.e. the truth, simplicity and beauty. The pursuit of fame, getting publicity
at any cost and the methods used by Peregrinus to achieve his goals were in conflict in particular
with the principle of truth. By his conduct that individual deliberately misled his admirers. What
is more significant he wanted to be called Proteus and like this mythical protagonist, he kept on
changing his shape, never showing his true face. Depending on the situation, he was able to adapt
in a clever way to the circumstances, taking on either a mask of a pious Christian or a Cynic philosopher,
or a Hellenic patriot calling for fight with the Romans. In his dialogue Lucian introduces
a lot of terminology related to the theatre, staging a drama, performance and in this context the
way Peregrinus acts is rooted. Even his suicidal death in Olympia was preceded by kind of a wide
scale “self-advertising” : not only had Peregrinus announced his intentions at an earlier date during
the Olympic Games, for which numerous crowds of spectators were gathered, but what he did
was sending letters to the major cities of Hellas in order to attract as many spectators as possible.
In Lucian’s opinion, despite all those detailed preparations, Peregrinus believed that his friends
and supporters would not let him die on a pyre and that he would be able to withdraw at the last
moment. However, he got deeply disappointed. The way the spectators acted was against Peregrinus’s
expectations , because they treated seriously the mask he had put on – the tragic mask of
a courageous philosopher - to his own undoing . Not only did they fail to prevent him from committing
suicide, just the opposite they encouraged him to commit that act; what is more, they were
indifferent to the tragic and grotesque pose shown by Peregrinus.
Moreover, according to Lucian, the way Peregrinus acted was in conflict with the principle
of simplicity. The very decision regarding committing suicide in such theatrical circumstances,
seemed to Lucian exceeding the principle of moderation of conduct. Peregrinus made sure that all
details were provided: the torch-light procession, the ceremony of setting the pyre on fire, special prayers and even a eulogy that he gave in praise of himself. Lucian found all that setting filled
with falseness and exaggeration. What is against the principle of truth and simplicity is also in
conflict with the principle of beauty. At the time of his death Peregrinus was already an old man
and his miserable appearance, filthy robes and obviously the conduct described above arouse according
to the satirist of Samosata disgust rather than respect. In Lucian’s view such a conduct is
not suitable to a person of his age, it is simply disgusting and makes one look not only ridiculous
but also abominable.
What Lucian unmasks is the irresistible desire for fame that , in case of Peregrinus, took on
a pathological size. He strips of all dignity not only his life, but even death. To do so he employs
a principle contained in one of his works : “If somebody put on a beautiful mask onto the face of an
ugly man and that man boasted of his beauty even though it could be removed, he would become
even more ridiculous if he stood up before us showing his natural face and if we saw what kind
of ugliness was hidden under that mask.”
Peregrinus puts on such a mask himself believing that it is his true face. His madness and
tragedy at the same time is that he cannot live without that mask, he is unable to live in truth,
simplicity and beauty.
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Keywords
the passing of Peregrinus, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders, self-deception, Cynic asceticism, pathological desire for fame, madness, theatrical behaviour, suicide
Citation
Symbolae Philologorum Posnaniensium, 2013, nr XXIII/2, s. 153-170.
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ISBN
ISSN
0302-7384