Lucian of Samosata (; , ; – after AD 180) was a
rhetorician and
satirist who wrote in the
Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature. Although he wrote solely in Greek, mainly
Attic Greek, he was ethnically
Assyrian. Lucian claimed to be a native speaker of a "barbarian tongue" (Double Indictment, 27) which was most likely
Syriac, a dialect of
Aramaic.