pelichus

Updated: May 6, 2025

Others cured diseases: as that of Pelichus, derided by Lucian; for the wiser among the heathen believed in sweating marble, weeping wood, and bleeding brass as I do. Of all our marks and dents made in stone by soft substances, this saint's knee, and that saint's finger, and t'other's head, the original is heathen. Thus the footprints of Hercules were shown on a rock in Scythia.

Charles Reade - The Cloister and the Hearth

'My dear Eucrates, said I, 'if bronze is bronze, and if that statue was cast by Demetrius of Alopece, who dealt not in Gods but in men, then I cannot anticipate any danger from a statue of Pelichus; even the menaces of the original would not have alarmed me particularly. Here Antigonus, the doctor, put in a word.

of Samosata Lucian - Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03

Now we had a scamp of a Libyan groom, who took it into his head to filch all this coin under cover of night. He waited till the statue had descended from his pedestal, and then put his plan into effect. Pelichus detected the robbery as soon as he got back; and this is how he found the offender out and punished him.

of Samosata Lucian - Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03

He is fond of taking a bath; you may hear him splashing about in the water all night long. 'Perhaps, I suggested, 'it is not Pelichus at all, but Talos the Cretan, the son of Minos? He was of bronze, and used to walk all round the island.

of Samosata Lucian - Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03

It seems from his own confession that he was scourged every night; and each succeeding morning the weals were to be seen on his body. Now, Tychiades, let me hear you laugh at Pelichus: I am a dotard, am I not? a relic from the time of Minos?

of Samosata Lucian - Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03