MEMNONIUM
 

MENANDER.
 

ed ar, army and a fleet, with the design of carry¬

ing the war into Greece, but died at Mytilene in

333, befoie he could carry his plan into  execu¬

tion.  His death was an irreparable loss to the

Persian cause, for several  Greek states were

prepared to join him had he carried the war into

Greece.—3. A native of Heraelea Pontica, wrote

a large work on the history of that city.   Of how

many books it consisted, we do not know.  Pho¬

tius had read from the ninth to the sixteenth

inclusive, of which portion he has made a tol¬

erably copious abstract.   The first eight books

he had not read, and he speaks of other books

after the sixteenth.  The ninth book began with

an account of the tyrant Clearchus, the disciple

of Plato and  Isocrates, and the sixteenth  book

came down to the time of Julius  Caesar,  after

the latter had obtained  the  supreme  power.

The work was probably written in the time of

Augustus, and certainly not later than the  time

of Hadrian or the Antonines.  The Excerpta

of Photius are published separately by  Orelii,

Lips , 1816

  Memnoipum and -ia (Mepvbvewv, Mepvoveia),

were namfjs  applied  by the Greeks  to  certain

very ancient buildings and monuments in Egypt

and Asia, which they supposed to have  been

erected  by or in honor of Memnon.   1  The

most ce'ebrated of these was a great temple at

Thebes, described by Strabo, and commonly

identified by  modern travellers with the mag¬

nificent  ruins of the temple  of Remeses the

Gre.it, at Western Thebes,  or, as  it is usually

cahed, the tomb of Osymandyas, from its agree¬

ment with the description of that monument giv¬

en by Diodorus.   There are,  however,  strong

grounds for supposing that  the true  Memnoni¬

um, described by Strabo, stood behind the two

colossal sitting statues on the plain of Thebes,

ane of which is clearly the vocal statue of Mem¬

non, and that it  has entirely disappeared.—2

Vid. Abydos,  No. 2.—3. The citadel of Susa was

so called, and its erection was ascnoed to the

Memnon who appears in the legends of the Tro¬

jan war; but there is no reason to suppose that

this connection of Memnon with the Persian cap¬

ital existed before the Persian conquest of Egypt.

  Memphis (Mepjpig, Mevip: in the Old Testament,

Moph: Mep^irng, Memphites: now ruins at  Menf

and Mdrahenny), a great city of Egypt,  second

in importance only to Thebes, after the fall of

which it became the capital of the whole country,

a position which it had previously shared  with

Thebes  It was of unknown antiquity, its found¬

ation being ascribed to Menes. It  stood on the

left (western) bank of the Nile, about ten miles

above the Pyramids of Jizeh, near the northern

limit of the  Heptanomis, or  Middle Egypt,  a

nome of which (MepQlrng) was named after the

city.  It was connected by canals with the lakes

of Maaris and Mareotis, and was the great centre

of the commerce of Egypt until the Persian con¬

quest (B.C. 524), when Cambyses partially de¬

stroyed the city.  After the foundation of Alex¬

andrea it sank into insignificance, and was final¬

ly destroyed  at the Arab  eonquest in the  sev¬

enth century.  In the time  of its splendor it is

said to have been one hundred and fifty stadia

in circumference, and half  a day's journey in

every direction.  Of the splendid buildings  with

which it was adorned, the  chief were the palace
 

of tho Pharaohs ;  the temple-palace of the god

bull Apis; the temple of Serapis, with its ave

nue of sphinxes, now covered by the sand of the

desert;  and the temple of Vulcan (Hephaestus).

the Egyptian Phtha, of whose worship Memphis

was the ichief seat.  The ruins of this temple,

and of other buildings,  still cover a  large por¬

tion of the plain between the Nile and the west¬

ern range of hills which skirt its valley

  Men-enum or Men^e (Menenius, Cic , Menani

nus, Plin., but on coins  Menaanus : now Mineo)

a town on the eastern coast of Sicily, south of

Hybla, the birth-place and  residence of the Si-

celian chief Ducetius, who was long a formida¬

ble enemy of the  Greek cities  in Sicily.   Vid

Ducetius.   On his  fall the town lost all its im

portance.

  Menalippus.  Vid. Melanippus.

  Menander (MivavSpog),  of Athens, the most

distinguished poet of the  New Comedy, was

the son of Diopitb.es  and Hegesistrato, and flour

ished in the  time of the successors of Alexan¬

der.   He was born B C. 342.  His father, Dio-

pithes, commanded the  Athenian forces on the

Hellespont in the year of his son's birth.  Alex

is, the comic poet, was the uncle of Menander

on the father's side ; and we may naturally sup¬

pose that the young Menander derived from his

uncle  his taste for  the comic drama, and was

instructed by him in its rules of composition.

His character must have been greatly influenced

by his intimacy with Theophrastus and Epicu¬

rus, of whom the former was his teacher and

the latter his intimate  friend.   His taste and

sympathies were altogether with the philosophy

of Epicurus  ; and in an epigram  he declared

that  " as Themistocles rescued  Greece from

slavery, so Epicurus from unreason."   From

Theophrastus, on the other hand, he must have

derived  much of that skill in the discrimination

of character which we  so much admire in the

Ckaraderes of the philosopher, and which form¬

ed the great charm  of the  comedies of Menan¬

der.   His master's  attention to external ele¬

gance and comfort he not only imitated, but, as

was natural in a man of an elegant person,  a

joyous spirit, and  a  serene and easy temper, he

carried  it to the extreme of luxury and effem¬

inacy.  The moral character of Menander is de¬

fended by modern writers against the  asper¬

sions of Suidas and  others.  Thus much is cer¬

tain, that his comedies  contain nothing offens¬

ive, at least to  the taste of his own and the fol¬

lowing ages, none of the purest, it must be ad¬

mitted, as they were frequently acted at private

banquets.  Of the actual events of his life we

know but little.  He enjoyed the  friendship of

Demetrius Phalereus, whose attention was first

drawn to him by admiration of his works.  Ptol¬

emy, the son of Lagus,  was also one of his ad¬

mirers ;  and he invited  the poet to his court at

Alexandrea, but Menander seems to have de¬

clined the proffered  honor.   He died  at Athens

B.C. 291, at  the age of  52, and is said to have

been drowned while swimming in the harbor of

Piraeus.   Notwithstanding Menander's fame as

a poet, his public dramatic  career was not emi¬

nently successful; for, though he composed up¬

ward of one hundred comedies, he gained tha

prize only eight times.   His preference for ele¬

gant exhibitions of charactei above coarse jest

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