Lucian, Aristophanes, and the Language of Intellectuals

The Atticizing language of the Second Sophistic was a subject for frequent debate, a debate in which Lucian of Samosata was heavily involved. Old Comedy, especially Aristophanes, provided much of the Attic vocabulary from which writers of this period drew when undertaking their revival of Attic Greek, and Lucian’s prose is no exception. Lucian, however, is unique in his construction of a satirical voice to join the Atticism debate. Furthermore, as this article argues, Lucian’s mockery of deficient neo-Atticism draws on similar mockery in Aristophanes and other Old Comedy sources. By means of a self-conscious, agonistic program of reception, Lucian enlists Old Comedy voices as allies in lampooning other Imperial Greek authors.