also. Lucian's zeal against such sham pretenders here brought him into some trouble, and went near to cost him his life. Alexander, who had specially invited him to an audience, held out his hand, according to custom, for his visitor to kiss; whereupon Lucian, by way of active protest against an imposture which he had already denounced, bit it so hard as actually to lame him for some time. The Prophet affected to treat the thing as a practical joke, but, when Lucian was leaving the country, gave private orders to the captain and crew of the vessel to fling the malicious unbeliever overboard—a fate which he only escaped through the unusual tender-heartedness of the Asiatic captain.
He seems to have become poorer again in his later years, and to have occasionally taken up his old profession. But at last the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (or, as Wieland rather thinks, Commodus) offered him an official appointment (something like that of Recorder, or Clerk of the Courts) at Alexandria in Egypt. His chief duties were, as he tells us, to preside over the courts of justice and to keep the records.[1] He thought it necessary to write an "Apology" for accepting this position; for it happened that he had just put forth an essay (which will come under notice hereafter) on the miseries of a state of dependence on great men, and was conscious that his enemies might take occasion to sneer at so stout a champion of independence thus consenting to sell himself for office. He must have felt like Dr Johnson when he consulted his friends as to the propriety of his accepting the
- ↑ "Apology," 12.
