Philosophers Redux: The Hermotimus, the Fisherman, and the Role of Dead Philosophers

Abstract

Abstract This article reexamines the Hermotimus’s status as a Lucianic anomaly: a serious dialogue. Recent scholarship on the Hermotimus has focused on its debt to the Platonic dialogue and to the writings of Sextus Empiricus; but the Hermotimus also contains telling similarities to other Lucianic dialogues. An analysis of characters and scenarios familiar from the Lover of Lies, the Symposium, and the Fisherman suggests that, despite its outwardly serious tone, the Hermotimus follows the Lucianic trope of blending the comic with the serious to expose the foibles of philosophers. This article therefore reframes the way we approach this dialogue by highlighting the protreptic function of Lucianic comedy to inspire the Hermotimus philosophically.