With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes now Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues is _The Professor of Oratory_, _Nigrinus_, _Philosophies for Sale_, _The Fisherman_. In _The Professor of Oratory_ ironic advice is given to a young man on how to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on the top of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither two roads lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an easy slope amid flowers and fountains. Two guides will present themselves to you. One, vigorous and manly, will point out to you the hard way in the footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how severe the training must be for their followers. He will wish, the simpleton, to make you model yourself on the past. The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed, with an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can become such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance, boldness, shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and always carry a book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a few stock words, a few learned references for ornaments of your discourse. He will teach you a high singsong chant and the art of always beginning with stories from the Iliad. Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must live fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a deuce of a fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will be fitted to be the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the winged chariot of which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out of your way, for he was defeated when once you chose the primrose path. This picture of _The Perfect Rhetorician_ has been thought by some critics to be a personal satire of the contemporary lexicographer Pollux. However that may be, it is certainly a satire of any pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on cheap externalities and superficial training.