Jan. 2: National Science-Fiction Day & Lucian of Samosata

On National Science-Fiction Day we remember Lucian of Samosata, considered by many the Father of Science-Fiction. Lucian of Samosata was an author from the 2nd century CE who wrote what some people today call Proto-Science-Fiction, an early version of what evolved into modern Science-Fiction (which started with Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein : Or, the Modern Prometheus”). His works are the earliest recorded works of this type, dealing with satirical topics involving trips to the moon and interplanetary wars.

Lucian of Samosata was born in Samosata, a city in the Roman province of Syria, and received a Greek education in rhetoric and literature. He was a satirist, rhetorician, and pamphleteer who wrote more than eighty works on various topics, such as philosophy, religion, mythology, history, and fiction. Lucian is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal. He also invented the genre of comic dialogue, a parody of the traditional Socratic dialogue and traveled widely as a public speaker and lecturer, eventually settling in Athens for a decade, where he wrote most of his works.

From Rhetorician to Writer

Lucian was successful as a rhetorician, but he seems to have been dissatisfied with the emptiness of his profession and took to writing critical and satirical essays on the intellectual life of his time, either in the form of Platonic dialogues or, in imitation of Menippus, in a mixture of prose and verse. He wrote most of his extant works in this early Athenian period, which include his most famous work, A True Story, a satire of outlandish tales that had been reported in ancient sources, particularly those that presented fantastic or mythical events as if they were true. The novel is also considered the earliest known work of fiction to include travel to outer space, alien lifeforms, and interplanetary warfare, and has been described as “the first known text that could be called science fiction”.

Influences on Lucian of Samosata

Lucian was greatly influenced by Menippus of Gadara, a Cynic philosopher and satirist who wrote in a mixture of prose and verse and mocked the pretensions of philosophers and the superstitions of the masses. He often introduced him as an interlocutor to his dialogues, and drew some motives from his satire, such as the motive of going down to Hades. Lucian was also influenced by Plato, whose dialogues he imitated and parodied, and by Homer, whose epic poems he admired and emulated. He also drew inspiration from the comic poets, such as Aristophanes and Menander, and from the rhetorical tradition, especially the Second Sophistic, a movement of Greek orators and writers in the Roman Empire.

Works

Lucian wrote more than 80 works, mostly in the form of dialogues, that mocked the superstitions, religions, and philosophies of his time. He used humor, irony, and fantasy to expose the absurdities and contradictions of human beliefs and behavior. He is considered one of the earliest and most influential satirists in Western literature.

Father of Science Fiction

Lucian is also regarded as the father of science fiction, because he introduced elements of scientific and technological imagination into his stories. He wrote about voyages to the moon and the sun, encounters with aliens and robots, interplanetary wars, and utopian societies. He used these fantastic scenarios to criticize the social and political realities of his own world, and to explore the possibilities and limits of human knowledge and creativity.

Some of his most famous works that contain science fiction elements are:

• A True Story: A parody of travel narratives that describes a journey to the moon, where the narrator meets strange creatures and witnesses a war between the lunar and solar kingdoms. The 1988 film “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” borrowed some ideas from the book.
• Icaromenippus: A satire on the philosophers who claim to know the secrets of the universe, in which the narrator flies to the moon and the sun with wings made of vultures’ feathers.
• The Lover of Lies: A collection of stories that ridicule the credulity of people who believe in the supernatural and the paranormal, such as ghosts, oracles, and sorcery.
• Alexander the False Prophet: A biography of a notorious charlatan who claimed to be a prophet and a miracle-worker, and who deceived many people with his tricks and illusions.
• The Fisherman, or the Dead Come to Life: A defense of Lucian’s own style of writing, in which he argues that his stories are more truthful than the serious and boring histories and philosophies of his contemporaries.

Lucian’s Influence and Legacy

Lucian’s influence and legacy are immense and diverse. He was widely read and admired in antiquity, and his works were translated into Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and other languages. He influenced many later writers, such as Apuleius, Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis, Petronius, Rabelais, Erasmus, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Cyrano de Bergerac and Mark Twain. Lucian is regarded as the father of science fiction, and his novel A True Story has inspired many modern authors, such as Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Douglas Adams. He is also considered a pioneer of humanism, skepticism, and satire, and his works have been used as sources of information and criticism on ancient culture, religion, and philosophy.

You might enjoy these 2 books below:

You might also enjoy our old blog post about Frankenstein and the birth of Science-Fiction.