Chapter 8. MENIPPUS
[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 seriousness2 in him ; 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 a victim to a plot, was robbed of all, and in despair ended his days by hanging himself. I have composed a trifle upon him4:
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 descent5; 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.
