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99 Menippus,1 also a Cynic, was by descent a Phoenician — a slave, as Achaïcus in his treatise on Ethics says. Diocles further informs us that his master was a citizen of Pontus and was named Baton. But as avarice made him very resolute in begging, he succeeded in becoming a Theban.
There is no seriousness in him;2 but his books overflow with laughter, much the same as those of his contemporary Meleager.3
Hermippus says that he lent out money by the day and got a nickname from doing so. For he used to make loans on bottomry and take security, thus accumulating a large fortune.
100 At last, however, he fell victim to a plot, was robbed of all, and in despair ended his days by hanging himself. I have composed a trifle upon him:4
p105
May be, you know Menippus, Phoenician by birth, but a Cretan hound: A money-lender by the day — so he was called — At Thebes when once on a time his house was broken into And he lost his all, not understanding what it is to be a Cynic, He hanged himself. |
Some authorities question the genuineness of the books attributed to him, alleging them to be by Dionysius and Zopyrus of Colophon, who, writing them for a joke, made them over to Menippus as a person able to dispose of them advantageously.
101 There have been six men named Menippus: the first the man who wrote a History of the Lydians and abridged Xanthus; the second my present subject; the third a sophist of Stratonicea, a Carian by descent;5 the fourth a sculptor; the fifth and sixth painters, both mentioned by Apollodorus.
However, the writings of Menippus the Cynic are thirteen in number:
Necromancy.
Wills.
Epistles artificially composed as if by the gods.
Replies to the physicists and mathematicians and grammarians; and
A book about the birth of Epicurus; and
The School's reverence for the twentieth day.
Besides other works.
1 "Menippus ille, nobilis quidem canis," Varro apud Nonium 333. Cf. Lucian, Icaromenippus 15, Bis Accusatus 33. Varro's Saturae Menippeae, a mixture of prose and verse, were an imitation of the style of Menippus, although their subject matter was original and genuinely Roman.
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2 Strabo, however (XVI p759), speaks of him as σπουδογέλοιος.
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3 For a fragment from his Banquet see Athenaeus 502C.
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4 Anth. Plan. V.41.
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5 Cf. Cic. Brut. 91, § 315 "post a me tota Asia peragrata est, <fuique> cum summis quidem oratoribus, quibuscum exercebar ipsis lubentibus; quorum erat princeps Menippus Stratonicensis meo iudicio tota Asia illis temporibus disertissimus," and Strabo XIV.660.º
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Page updated: 15 Feb 18