Greek Texts & Translations

Menippus, ^note 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 ^note in him ; but his books overflow with laughter, much the same as those of his contemporary Meleager. ^note

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. 6.8.100 At last, however, he fell a victim to a plot, was robbed of all, and in despair ended his days by hanging himself. I have composed a trifle upon him ^note:

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.

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 ^note; 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.

Menedemus was a pupil of Colotes of Lampsacus. According to Hippobotus he had attained such a degree of audacity in wonder-working that he went about in the guise of a Fury, saying that he had come from Hades to take cognisance of sins committed, and was going to return and report them to the powers down below. This was his attire : a grey tunic reaching to the feet, about it a crimson girdle ; an Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac inwrought in it ; buskins of tragedy ; and he wore a very long beard and carried an ashen staff in his hand.

Such are the lives of the several Cynics. But we will go on to append the doctrines which they held in common - if, that is, we decide that Cynicism is really a philosophy, and not, as some maintain, just a way of life. They are content then, like Ariston of Chios, to do away with the subjects of Logic and Physics and to devote their whole attention to Ethics. And what some assert of Socrates, Diocles records of Diogenes, representing him as saying : "We must inquire into

Whate'er of good or ill within our halls is wrought." ^note

They also dispense with the ordinary subjects of instruction. At least Antisthenes used to say that those who had attained discretion had better not study literature, lest they should be perverted by alien influences. 6.9.104 So they get rid of geometry and music and all such studies. Anyhow, when somebody showed Diogenes a clock, he pronounced it a serviceable instrument to save one from being late for dinner. Again, to a man who gave a musical recital before him he said ^note :

By men's minds states are ordered well, and households,

Not by the lyre's twanged strings or flute's trilled notes.