Page:Lucian, Vol 3.djvu/185

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THE IGNORANT BOOK-COLLECTOR

This too is a diatribe, an excellent illustration of that sort of diatribe which made the word to us moderns synonymous with invective. It is far from a school exercise, but was directed against a real person, a Syrian (ยง 19), evidently well enough known to Lucian's auditors. A scholiast (probably Bishop Arethas, who was himself a book-collector) remarks: "If I may guess, Lucian, you asked him for the loan of a book, and when you did not get it, requited him with this handsome token of your esteem!" It was written after the death of Peregrinus Proteus and during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, about 170 a.d.

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