Menippus the Cynic in the Greek Anthology

J.C. Relihan: Menippus the Cynic55 Menippus the Cynic in the Greek Anthology Joel C. Relihan It is the purpose of this paper to suggest that two epigrams of the Greek Anthology, 9.74 and 9.367, refer to the Cynic Menippus, the renegade philosopher and author after whom we name the genre of Menippean satire. I would claim that these epigrams are to be assigned to the hostile biographical tradition that attaches to Menippus' name. This connection has not been made before, as there are other Menippuses in the Anthology who clearly are not the Cynic,1 and as the Menippus known from Lucian is quite a different personality. Yet we may allow theAnthology to surprise us: after all, only in the Anthology, in two epigrams of Meleager, do we hear that Menippus' works, which must have been strange indeed, could be referred to as XápiTc?.2 Menippus' life and writings generate conflicting reports in antiquity, as I hope to document here. The two epigrams under discussion are both of a moralizing nature, and are at home with the other witty epigrams on celebrities that may be found in Book LX. The first of these, 9.74, is anonymous (it is ascribed to Lucian in the Planudean Anthology, but this is rejected in Macleod's edition of Lucian's epigrams);3 the 1 An epigram of Crinagoras (9.559) speaks of Menippus of Pergamum, the famed geographer, an epigram of Nicarchus (1 1.406) merely addresses a Menippus while speaking of the grotesquely long-nosed Nicon, and of this Menippus nothing more can be said. A Menippus appears twice in the Musa Puerilis, as a youth who rejects a lover because of the letter's poverty (A.P. 12.148 = Callimachus Epigr. XXXII [34] Pfeiffer), and as a youth who avoids an older lover out of shame for lhe onset of his pubescence (12. 176, Strato): these two poems would seem to refer to the same person, even if that person is entirely a literary fiction. Nor is it likely that this fiction is inspired by the Cynic Menippus, who is a contemporary of Callimachus and not likely to be known as a youth prior to his literary fame. 2 In two autobiographical epigrams Meleager records his debt to "the Graces of Menippus" (7.417.3-4; 7.418.5-6). 3 M.D. Macleod, Luciani Opera, TomusIV (Oxford 1987) 413-14 (Epigram 7). 56SyIIecta Classica 1 (1989) second, 9.367, is explicitly attributed to Lucian in the Anthology (accepted by Macleod, though questioned by Sakolowski, who attributes it to the emperor Julian).4 We should expect that the Cynic Menippus would be the Menippus pointed to in epigrams ascribed to Lucian; the problem is that the Menippus of these epigrams and the Menippus ofLucian seem irreconcilable.5 I think that both of these epigrams, whoever their authors may be,6 refer to the Cynic Menippus as well, and that the pseudo-biographical details related of him here, as a landowner with a wastrel son, are to be related to the traditions known largely through the hostile Life in Diogenes Laertius (6.99-101), among whose sources is the sensational Hermippus. The pages of Lucian are not our only source for information about Menippus, and need hardly be taken as authoritative: insofar as he does give biographical details, Lucian seems freely to confuse Menippus and Diogenes, and to join the historical Menippus to that author's own literary and selfparodic self-presentation.7 Menippus is a man about whom antiquity knows little and invents much. The character and writings of Menippus inspire a fair amount of hostile comment, to which these two epigrams may add their witness. ????? ??a?µe??d?? ?e??µ?? p?t?, ??? d? ?e??pp?? ?a? p???? ?? ?te??? ß?s?µa? el? ?te???, ?a? ?a? ??e???? e?e?? µ? p?t' ?et?, ?a? p???? otro? ??eta?· e?µ? d' d??? ??de???, ???a ?????.(9.74) The poem echoes a popular sentiment: wealth and property belong to no one. To choose parallels only from the ambit of Menippus and those whom he may have inspired, we find this in Lucilius,8 in Horace,9 and in Lucian as well.10 What is...