Lucian in the context of "Gymnosophists"

The Lemnian Athena, or Athena Lemnia, was a classical Greek statue of the goddess Athena that stood on the Acropolis of Athens. According to the traveler Pausanias, who visited Athens in the 2nd century CE, the statue was created by Pheidias, a sculptor of the 5th century BCE, and dedicated by the inhabitants of the island of Lemnos. In addition to Pausanias, two other authors of the Roman period, Lucian and Aelius Aristides, mention the statue by name, and it may also be alluded to by Pliny the Elder and the Late Roman rhetorician Himerius. The ancient sources suggest that the statue was greatly admired: Pausanias calls it "the most worth seeing" (θέας μάλιστα ἄξιον) of all of Pheidias's works, and in Lucian's dialogue the answer to the question "Which of Pheidias's works do you praise the most?" is "What other than the goddess of Lemnos?"

Since the 1890s the name "Athena Lemnia" has been associated with a specific ancient statue type, which depicts Athena without a helmet and wearing an aegis diagonally across her breast. This type is known from several Roman copies or free imitations, of which the most important are:

The Apollo Lyceus (Greek: Ἀπόλλων Λύκειος, Apollōn Lukeios) type, also known as Lycean Apollo, originating with Praxiteles and known from many full-size statue and figurine copies as well as from 1st century BCE Athenian coinage, is a statue type of Apollo showing the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or tripod), his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycean" not after Lycia itself, but after its identification with a lost work described, though not attributed to a sculptor, by Lucian as being on show in the Lyceum, one of the gymnasia of Athens. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." Its main exemplar is the Apollino in Florence or Apollo Medici, in the Uffizi, Florence.

The attribution, based on the type's "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy", as Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway characterised it, is traditionally supported on the grounds of the type's similarity to Praxiteles's Hermes from Olympia – one replica of the Lycian Apollo even passed as a copy of the Hermes for a time. The comparison essentially rests on the Apollino, whose head has proportions similar to those of the Aphrodite of Cnidus and whose pronounced sfumato confirms the long-held idea that it is Praxitelean in style, in spite of the many differences among the extant examples.

Philippopolis (Ancient Greek: Φιλιππούπολις, Φιλιππόπολις) is one of the names of the ancient city (amongst which are Thracian Eumolpia/Pulpudeva, Roman Trimontium) situated where Plovdiv is today. The city became one of the largest and most important in the region and was called "the largest and most beautiful of all cities" by Lucian. During most of its recorded history, the city was known by the name Philippopolis (Ancient Greek: Φιλιππούπολις, romanized: Philippoúpolis, lit. 'Philip's city') after Philip II of Macedon. Philippopolis became part of the Roman Empire and capital of the Roman province of Thracia. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Philippopolis had a population of 100,000 in the Roman period.

Philippopolis was in a fertile region on the banks of the Maritsa River (the ancient Hebrus). The city historically developed on seven syenite hills, some of which are 250 metres (820 feet) high, because of which Plovdiv is often referred to in Bulgaria as "The City of the Seven Hills".

Humbaba (Ḫumbaba; 𒄷𒌝𒁀𒁀, Ḫumbāba, with an optional determinative 𒀭), originally known as Ḫuwawa in Sumerian (𒄷𒉿𒉿, Ḫuwāwa), was a figure in Mesopotamian mythology. The origin and meaning of his name are unknown. He was portrayed as an anthropomorphic figure comparable to an ogre or giant. He is best known from Sumerian and Akkadian narratives focused on the hero Gilgamesh, including short compositions belonging to the curriculum of scribal schools, various versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and several Hurrian and Hittite adaptations. He is invariably portrayed as the inhabitant or guardian of the cedar forest, to which Gilgamesh ventures with his companion Enkidu. The subsequent encounter leads to the death of Humbaba, which provokes the anger of the gods. Humbaba is also attested in other works of Mesopotamian literature. Multiple depictions of him have also been identified, including combat scenes and apotropaic clay heads.

It has been suggested that the iconography of Humbaba influenced depictions of the gorgons in Greece, in particular scenes of Perseus slaying Medusa with the help of Athena. A late derivative of Humbaba also seems to be found in both Jewish and Manichaean versions of the Book of Giants, where one of the eponymous beings is referred to as Ḥôbabiš, Ḥôbabis or Ḥōbāīš. While it is agreed the name is derived from his own, the context in which it appears shows no similarity to known myths involving him. Traces of Ḥôbabiš have also been identified in a number of later works belonging to Islamic tradition, such as religious polemics. A number of connections have also been proposed between Humbaba and figures such as Kombabos from the works of Lucian or biblical Hobab, but they are not regarded as plausible.

Calamis (fl. 5th century BC) was a sculptor of ancient Greece. He was possibly from Boeotia, but nothing certain is known of his life although he is credited with having lived in Athens, and his sculptures are representative of Athenian sculpture. Although none of his works survives, he is known for his talent and skill in sculpting animals, especially horses, as opposed to the human body. He is known to have worked in marble, bronze, gold, and ivory, and was famed for statues of horses, which Pliny says were unrivaled.

According to Pausanias (9.16.1), Calamis produced a statue of Zeus Ammon for Pindar, and mentions a Hermes Criophorus for Tanagra (9.22.1), which was later depicted on Roman coins of the city. His statue of Apollo Alexikakos stood in front of the Temple of Apollo Patroos in Athens. He produced his most ambitious work, a 30-cubit statue of Apollo for Apollonia Pontica (on modern St. Ivan Island, Bulgaria; Pliny the Elder 4.92, 34.39, Strabo 7.6.1, p. 319). His Sosandra was praised by Lucian, and may have been copied for Aspasia, which in turn was copied by the Romans.

The Second Sophistic is a literary-historical term referring to the Greek writers who flourished from the reign of Nero until c. 230 AD and who were catalogued and celebrated by Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists. However, some recent research has indicated that this Second Sophistic, which was previously thought to have abruptly appeared in the late 1st century, actually had its roots in the early 1st century. It was followed in the 5th century by the philosophy of Byzantine rhetoric, sometimes referred to as the Third Sophistic.

Writers known as members of the Second Sophistic include Nicetes of Smyrna, Aelius Aristides, Dio Chrysostom, Herodes Atticus, Favorinus, Philostratus, Lucian, and Polemon of Laodicea. Plutarch is also often associated with the Second Sophistic movement as well, although multiple historians consider him to have been somewhat aloof from its emphasis on rhetoric, especially in his later work.