A Walk in the Clouds: Lucian’s Nigrinus and its Relationship to Plato’s Phaedrus

Anna I. Peterson (Ohio State University)

Lucian’s Nigrinus, structured as a dialogue framed by a letter, recreates the tension between written and oral discourse found at the end of Plato’s Phaedrus’ and explores the proper way to conduct philosophy. In the short epistolary introduction that frames the long central dialogue, Lucian extols Nigrinus’ logoi and proclaims his inability to surpass them. Lucian here draws his audience’s attention to his role as author while establishing that, like Lysias in the Phaedrus, Nigrinus’ only presence in the text is through his logoi. Once beyond the framing letter, Lucian presents a dialogue in which an unnamed speaker fervently recounts these logoi to his incredulous friend. According to the speaker, Nigrinus is the ideal Platonic philosopher who opened the speaker’s eyes to the horrors of Roman society. In this paper, I will explore how allusions to Plato and more specifically to the Phaedrus not only cast Lucian in the mold of Plato and Nigrinus in that of Lysias, but the two speakers as Phaedrus and Socrates. This dichotomy casts the Nigrinus not as a text written in praise of one particular philosopher but, like the Phaedrus before it, one that highlights the importance of active participation in philosophy.

One particularly striking allusion comes as the speaker describes how Nigrinus’ logoi were so powerful that they caused him to walk around with his head in the clouds (meteoros eimi). This image appears in similar phrasing in the Phaedrus as Socrates characterizes sophists for his listener Phaedrus (meteorologias phuseos peri). Such an allusion characterizes Nigrinus as a sophist and the speaker as his follower, thus calling into question Lucian’s initial praise of Nigrinus.

The identity of the main speaker is something that has plagued scholars of the Nigrinus. Jennifer Hall (1981), for example, offers an historical reading that assumes that this speaker represents a young Lucian and that his encounter with Nigrinus may have actually taken place. More recently, Simon Swain (1996) has argued that the anti-Roman views attributed to Nigrinus by the speaker represent Lucian’s own views of Rome. The anonymity of the speaker, however, is essential to understanding the Nigrinus. While it is not uncommon for Lucian to insert himself within a text, the fact that Lucian explicitly names himself as the author of the framing letter does not mean that this identification must extend into the dialogue. In fact, there is nothing in the dialogue to suggest that it should.

The separation of Lucian from the character of the main speaker underscores the opposition of the opening letter to the ensuing dialogue. Lucian imitates the irony of the Phaedrus, namely that it is a text of a conversation that decries the harm writing can inflict, yet for Lucian, the harm lies neither in written nor spoken discourse, but in the fanatical following of philosophers. Unlike Phaedrus, the main speaker does not rely on a text of Nigrinus, but reproduces from memory Nigrinus’ logoi. Lucian thus takes issue not with the mode of discourse, but with the passive, unquestioning, and ultimately un-Platonic followers of philosophers.