295Prometheus’ Last Words: Lucian and Parrhesia Beyond Literary Genres

Prometheus is a good experiment to test the conditions and applications of freedom of thought and speech. Lucian’s parrhesia is at work for Prometheus. At the beginning, in Hesiod, it is a different matter: Prometheus is the epic trickster on the cosmic stage of immortal gods and mortal men. Aeschylus’ tragedy is naturally the first model to stage Prometheus’ parrhesia . But Lucian is not satisfied. Beyond literary genres, through the ways of Platonic dialogue, on the model of Socrates’ Apology , he stages a trial, a useless logos dikanikos , which becomes a formidable logos epideiktikos of the Second Sophistic. A fictio with new effects. Prometheus, with the arts of speech, becomes a hero of a new tlemosyne , against the unjust dike of Zeus: he is a formidable satirical hero of Lucian.