In the introduction of his science fiction adventure the True Histories, Lucian likens his literary production to relaxation of the body, as he says “those interested in athletics and the care of their body think not only of conditioning and exercise, but also of relaxation at the appropriate time,” (1.1). The True Histories then act as a release or leisure for the mind. This relaxation will also present its consumer with something profitable, as “it will show some spectacle (θeωρίαν) that is not unrefined (ἄμουσαν),” (1.2). The use of θeωρία here, with its attendant visual resonance, signals an important concentration on visuality and the production of literature and meaning in the True Histories. Lucian’s fantastic journey is filled with the physically deformed and grotesque, starting with the vestiges of Heracles’ outrageous physique (a hundred foot long foot print, 1.7), moving on to physical hybridity (the vine-women, whose lower half were made of grape vines, 1.8), alien bodies on the moon (1.22-26), and continuing with increasingly bizarre creatures (such as men with the heads of bulls, 2.43, men who use their giant phalloi as masts for ships, 2.45). While this subject material reflects in some way Lucian’s stated intention of reporting bizarre and unusual things “which in fact do not exist at all, and according to natural law could not exist at all,” (1.4), it also reflects his methodological approach to literary production. If we turn to Lucian’s essay How to Write History, we find that he uses physical and bodily metaphors in his descriptions of appropriate and inappropriate ways to write history. Adornment and pleasing prose in history are like “good looks on an athlete,” (9). They are nice, but that is not what wins the contest. Flattery and playing to the crowd in an historic work will make it like “Heracles in Lydia,” (10), covering a heroic frame with the ridiculous feminine outfit of Omphale. The bad historian is like a painter who goes out of his way to make ugly clients look handsome in their portraits (13). I argue that Lucian’s use of physical metaphors in his discussion of historiographic methodology is indicative of a wider concern with language in the Second Sophistic. The deployment of language was the primary mode of self-definition within the sphere of Greek cultural production. Yet, this general literary trend was expressed through a conspicuous, and conscious, engagement with a Classical past, a past where, especially in Athens, physicality and the display of the free citizen’s body was the primary mode of self-definition. Lucian’s extensive use of physical metaphors to describe literary production takes the interiority of self-fashioning in the Imperial period and expresses it through the lens of Classical Greek exteriority. Lucian’s θeωρία, also used to signify public festivals, in the True Histories is a celebration of cultural intertextuality, a dynamic relationship between visuality and narrative that roots his fictive writings in a Classical Greek past.