The age of lies is probably as old as time. When I was young, there was a comedian who did a

Bristolian version of the Fall of Man. In the Garden of Eden, God says to Adam in the Bristol

version, Adam, you've been eating them apples?

And Adam replies, I never.

God then says, what are all them bloody apple cores doing on the ground then?

Adam's I never is the original lie.

It's childlike and innocent in its palpable untruth.

A more sophisticated lie is delivered by Zeus in book two of Homer's Iliad.

Zeus sends a lying dream to Agamemnon, the leader of the Achaeans, in the form of ancient Nestor.

The dream, let's call him fake Nusios,

tells Agamemnon that Troy is about to fall.

But now, listen well, I bring word to you from Zeus,

who, though far distant, greatly cares for and pities you.

He bids you arm the long-haired ochaeans for battle with all speed,

for now you may take the broad-streated city of the Trojans. Now that is a lie because Zeus actually wants to punish the Achaeans and doesn't want

Troy to fall. But since the dream comes from Zeus, Agamemnon reports it to his fellow leaders.

The real Nestor is understandably skeptical about what his dream-like

doppelganger has said and murmurs, had it been any other Akeon who informed us of this dream, we'd call it a lie

and have nothing to do with it. Then something extremely odd happens, which reveals a lot about lying, generally, in fiction and in life.

Agamemnon, having been lied to by Zeus, decides to stand up in front of the Achaean soldiers and lie to them about Zeus's lie.

He doesn't say, Zeus says that if we attack today we're finally going to kick

some pesky Trojan, but instead he says we've lost. It's time to go home. Great Zeus, Kronos's

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