The piece is written as a letter to Cronius who is marked as a Platonist by the formula of greeting εὖ πράττειν. Lucian begins with the fact of Peregrinus’ self-imposed death and at once ascribes to him the motive of love of notoriety. This, he says, is proved by the fact that Peregrinus selected for the time of his suicide the Olympic festival, which draws great crowds. Lucian knows that Cronius will have a good laugh at the foolishness of the old man so he will write his friend just what he himself saw as he stood near the pyre. His method is clever. First Theagenes a Cynic proclaimed in the streets of Elis the glory of virtue and the glory of her follower Proteus (Peregrinus) and announced that Proteus was about to leave this life by fire in the manner of Hercules, Aesculapius, Dionysus and Empedocles. Theagenes’ justification of the deed went unheard because of the noise of the crowd, but another orator (clearly Lucian) stepped forth and made a speech reviewing Peregrinus’ career. Beginning with Democritean laughter he narrated the life of Proteus accusing him of adultery as a youth in Armenia, of corrupting a boy in Asia, of strangling his own father, of becoming a Christian in Palestine, of resigning all his property in Parium on the Hellespont, of practicing the ascetic life in Egypt, of seeking notoriety in Greece by denouncing Herodes Atticus for his aqueduct at Olympia and later recanting. Finally, says Lucian, this Proteus has announced his intention of cremating himself. The motive is love of fame though he claims that he wishes thus to teach men to despise death and endure torture. He plainly hopes that myths and a cult will arise around his memory. Indeed Theagenes has quoted a prophecy to that effect, but Lucian can match that oracle with another which orders all the Cynic’s disciples to imitate him even to the last leap into the flames. After these speeches, Lucian was on hand when the pyre was kindled at Harpina near Olympia shortly after midnight. As an eye-witness he saw the pyre in a pit six feet deep, Peregrinus in the dress of a Cynic bearing a torch, men lighting the fire, how then Peregrinus stripped to his old shirt and after crying: “Spirits of my mother and my father, receive me with goodwill,” leaped into the flames to be seen no more. Even when the other Cynics stood about the pyre in silent grief, Lucian felt no sympathy, but taunted them brutally, and actually got into a broil with them before he departed to meditate on how strange the love of fame is. Lucian had to tell the story of Peregrinus’ death over and over until to amuse himself, he invented a vulture that he saw flying from the flames to heaven, crying: “I have left the earth, I am going to Olympus.” And this invention of his became part of the growing myth about the hero.