Summary Of 'Lucian's Lychnopolis And The Problems Of Slave Surveillance'

Sonia Sabnis article, “Lucian’s Lychnopolis and the Problems of Slave Surveillance” explores the connection to slavery found in the Lychnopolis scene of Lucian’s True Histories. The article builds on Sabnis’ main points: that lamps are a symbol for slaves, that lamps and slaves are witnesses to their master’s private affairs, and that the freedom allowed to the lamps in Lychnopolis means they can express their own morals. In all but one case, Sabnis was able to create a convincing argument for these points.
She begins by making the claim that lamps are a symbol for slaves throughout the section “Lamps and Slaves”. Her assertion is supported by the association of slaves and lamps through language, both in other texts and within the True Histories,

Slaves, to the master’s misfortune, are still humans and retain the ability to speak about what they have seen, which, according to Sabnis, means that lamps were seen as silent, and therefore perfect, confidants. She provides a wealth of literary examples of this fact including an epigram of Philodemus where the maid, Philainis, is told to light the lamp and then leave (Sabnis, 223). The multitude of evidence showing lamps as the “ideal” witness convincingly demonstrates to the reader that the slaveholders of Lucian’s time were legitimately worried that their slaves would share their secrets. The lamps of Lychnopolis are not depicted as mute observers, so Sabnis moves on to an example that reflects a more animate lamp in her description of Lucian’s Downward Journey. The lamp of this story belongs to a deceased tyrant who has been put on trial in the underworld and it is the testimony of lamp which provides the damning evidence against the tyrant (Sabnis, 230-231). Therefore, Sabnis is able to show that Lucian knew of the “lamp as sole witness” motif by using one of his works where a lamp is a literal witness. This particular example also demonstrates that, in the Downward Journey, Lucian wanted to evoke the worst scenario that a slave-owner could imagine because it

This section of the article could have been better argued, because the connection between lychnomancy and Lychnopolis is weak. One example she provides is Apuleius ' Metamorphoses, where the mistress of the household, Pamphile predicts the weather using her lamp, which has little in common with the conversation in Lychnopolis (Sabnis, 235). Sabnis’ argument that the conversation between Lucian and his lamp is a form of lychnomancy does not seem as plausible when one takes into consideration the earlier connection she made between lamps and slaves and how much confidential knowledge they possess. Sabnis compares the knowledge of Lucian’s lamp to lychnomancy because of the extent of information it possesses, but she says that in Apuleius ' Metamorphoses, the slave Photis “…knows all of [her household’s] secrets” (Sabnis, 236). It would seem likely that if a slave could be aware of all her master’s most private information and that the lamps of Lychnopolis were meant to represent slaves, then the conversation between Lucian and his lamp can be explained as a slave relating their knowledge to their master. Sabnis also claims that the fact that the one does not read what the lamp told Lucian is an indication that the lamp is guided by its own morals instead of its master’s wishes (Sabnis, 236).