Greek Texts & Translations

He was fond of entertaining and used to collect numerous parties about him because Eretria was unhealthy; amongst these there would be parties of poets and musicians. He welcomed Aratus also and Lycophron the tragic poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes, but, above all, he applied himself to the study of Homer and, next, the Lyric poets; then to Sophocles, and also to Achaeus, to whom he assigned the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving Aeschylus the first. Hence he quoted against his political opponents the following lines ^note:

Ere long the swift is overtaken by the feeble,

And the eagle by the tortoise,

which are from the Omphale, a satiric drama of Achaeus. Therefore it is a mistake to say that he had read nothing except the Medea of Euripides, which some have asserted to be the work of Neophron of Sicyon.

He despised the teachers of the school of Plato and Xenocrates as well as the Cyrenaic philosopher Paraebates. He had a great admiration for Stilpo; and on one occasion, when he was questioned about him, he made no other answer than that he was a gentleman. Menedemus was difficult to see through, and in making a bargain it was difficult to get the better of him. He would twist and turn in every direction, and he excelled in inventing objections. He was a great controversialist, according to Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers. In particular he was fond of using the following argument: "Is the one of two things different from the other?" "Yes." "And is conferring benefits different from the good?" "Yes." "Then to confer benefits is not good."

It is said that he disallowed negative propositions, converting them into affirmatives, and of these he admitted simple propositions only, rejecting those which are not simple, I mean hypothetical and complex propositions. Heraclides declares that, although in his doctrines he was a Platonist, yet he made sport of dialectic. So that, when Alexinus once inquired if he had left off beating his father, his answer was, "Why, I was not beating him and have not left off"; and upon Alexinus insisting that he ought to have cleared up the ambiguity by a plain "Yes" or "No," "It would be absurd," he said, "for me to conform to your rules when I can stop you on the threshold." And when Bion persistently ran down the soothsayers, Menedemus said he was slaying the slain.

On hearing some one say that the greatest good was to get all you want, he rejoined, "To want the right things is a far greater good." Antigonus of Carystus asserts that he never wrote or composed anything, and so never held firmly by any doctrine. He adds that in discussing questions he was so pugnacious that he would only retire after he had been badly mauled. And yet, though he was so violent in debate, he was as mild as possible in his conduct. For instance, though he made sport of Alexinus and bantered him cruelly, he was nevertheless very kind to him, for, when his wife was afraid that on her journey she might be set upon and robbed, he gave her an escort from Delphi to Chalcis.

He was a very warm friend, as is shown by his affection for Asclepiades, which was hardly inferior to the devotion shown by Pylades. But, Asclepiades being the elder, it was said that he was the playwright and Menedemus the actor. They say that once, when Archipolis had given them a cheque for half a talent, they stickled so long over the point as to whose claim came second that neither of them got the money. It is said that they married a mother and her daughter; Asclepiades married the daughter and Menedemus the mother. But after the death of his own wife, Asclepiades took the wife of Menedemus; and afterwards the latter, when he became head of the state, married a rich woman as his second wife. Nevertheless, as they kept one household, Menedemus entrusted his former wife with the care of his establishment. 2.17.138 However, Asclepiades died first at a great age at Eretria, having lived with Menedemus economically, though they had ample means. Some time afterwards a favourite of Asclepiades, having come to a party and being refused admittance by the pupils, Menedemus ordered them to admit him, saying that even now, when under the earth, Asclepiades opened the door for him. It was Hipponicus the Macedonian and Agetor of Lamia who were their chief supporters; the one gave each of the two thirty minae, while Hipponicus furnished Menedemus with two thousand drachmae with which to portion his daughters. There were three of them according to Heraclides, his children by a wife who was a native of Oropus.

He used to give his parties in this fashion: he would breakfast beforehand with two or three friends and stay until it was late in the day. And in the next place some one would summon the guests who had arrived and who had themselves already dined, so that, if anyone came too soon, he would walk up and down and inquire from those who came out of the house what was on the table and what o'clock it was. If then it was only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart; but if there was meat, they would enter the house. In the summer time a rush mat was put upon each couch, in winter time a sheepskin. The guest brought his own cushion. The loving-cup which was passed round was no larger than a pint cup. The dessert consisted of lupins or beans, sometimes of ripe fruit such as pears, pomegranates, a kind of pulse, or even dried figs.