The fabulous creatures of Lucian's True History

Giant interstellar spiders, seductive trees, and kingdoms on the moon 🕷️

Salvēte omnēs!

For paid subscribers to Lupus Alatus, I had the idea of doing readings of Lucian’s True History (contains an English translation). Yes, I know that’s Greek, but fear not—you have been saved by 15th and 16th century humanists! Erasmus, Philipp Melanchton, Thomas More, and others translated all of the Greek satirist Lucian’s works into Latin.

Among these works is the novella A True History (page 122 in the previous link). This novella is often said to be the earliest work of science fiction. The narrator and his companions are sailing past the pillars of Hercules, and they are blown off course by a storm. And so begin their incredible journeys though out the universe (as it was known at the time) filled with fabulous creatures, interstellar battles, and extraterrestrial civilizations. The illustration above from the 19th century depicts one of these creatures: giant battle spiders that weave a battlefield between the sun and the moon.

My idea is to read a “chapter” from A True History at a time, explain and reword the reading in Latin as I go along, and provide a text of the reading. (I’ll try to find a text that doesn’t have abbreviations like the one linked above.) This should be about the same level as the material that I’ve produced on Youtube so far.

I’d like to hear your feedback about this. Is this something you’d be interested in? Let me know in the comments! You also have the ability to start chat threads on the Substack app or web if you’d like.

Cūrātē ut optimē valeātis!