Abstract
Sonia Sabnis
Department of Classics
University of California (Berkeley)
Lucian's Lychnopolis and the anxiety of surveillance
Lychnopolis, populated by personified, speaking lamps, occupies a brief space in Lucian's True Histories (1.29). Maintaining earth's social institutions, the lamps offer xenia to Lucian, but he is too fearful to be at ease in the city. The lamps assemble and talk, suggesting an inversion of domestic space; in the congregation of the lamps, private becomes public. I argue that the lamps symbolize domestic slaves, who are constant, silent witnesses to the private lives of their masters; moreover, Lucian's fear represents a real anxiety that slaves speak and betray these household secrets. Similar motifs are found in Hellenistic epigrams and other literary sources in which lamps are privy to secret affairs. In Lucian's own Cataplus, a lamp testifies against his owner. The parallels between lamps and slaves are clear: their knowledge threatens the privacy of their masters.
Return to CACW 2006 "Household and Society in the Ancient World" Program