Damis or Lucian? Onomastic issues in the Iuppiter Tragoedus by Lucian of Samosata

Abstract

This article investigates the principal naming strategies Lucian employs for characters embodying his authorial persona or voicing his intellectual concerns, navigating the ambiguous terrain between autobiography and authorial self-concealment. Reexamining well-known cases – ‘Syros’, ‘Parrhesiades’, ‘Lycinus’, and ‘Tychiades’ – the study argues that the name ‘Damis’, the satirical voice of Iuppiter Tragoedus, similarly functions as a dissimulation of authorial presence. This argument is developed through analysis of the dialogue’s formal and thematic architecture and the comic models that inform it, situating Iuppiter  tragoedus within the broader trajectory of Lucian’s literary corpus.