Lucian, in Greek Loukianos, was a Syrian, born about the year 120 at Samosata, where a bend of the Euphrates brings that river nearest to the borders of Cilicia in Asia Minor.

When he wrote from Cilicia to his more youthful friend Caelius, urging him to stick to the city, in words that are almost pathetic, it never occurred to him that he was prescribing exactly that course of treatment which had done himself much damage.

He went so far as to offer him command of the war against Tigranes and against Mithridates, and the governorship of Bithynia and Cilicia at the same time.

He practised medicine in Cilicia with his brother St. Damien, and both suffered martyrdom under Diocletian in 303 or 310.

He advised her, therefore, to proceed to Cilicia without fear; and to present herself before Antony in as much pomp and magnificence as she could command.

Then he made all the haste he could to go through Cilicia on his way to Rome, taking Aristobulus and his two children along with him as captives.

Will not Italy demand her share of the spoils, and side by side with the French in Syria, assume in friendly rivalry the protectorate of Cilicia from a point east of Adalia as far as the gulf of Alexandretta?