When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he said that he was killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard someone assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything that one desires; he said: “It is a much greater good to desire what is proper.” But Antigonus of Carystus tells us that he never wrote or composed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the face before he went away. But though he was so violent in his discourse, he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road.
And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment to Asclepiades; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. But Asclepiades was the elder of the two, so that it was said that he was the poet, and Menedemus the actor. And they say that on one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money between them, they had such a vigorous contest as to which should take the smaller share that neither of them would receive any of it.
It is said that they were both married; and that Asclepiades was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter; and when Asclepiades’s wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus; and Menedemus, when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich; and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at Eretria, being of a great age; having lived with Menedemus with great economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion after the death of Asclepiades a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him even now that he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of them thirty minae, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.
And he used to give banquets in this fashion: First of all, he would sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day; and then he would invite in anyone who came to see him, even if they had already dined; and if anyone came too soon, they would walk up and down and ask those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what o’clock it was; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in winter soft cushions; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for himself. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried figs. And all these circumstances are detailed by Lycophron, in his satiric dramas, which he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, making his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of the lines:
After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup Is handed round with moderation due; And conversation wise makes the dessert.
At first, now, he was not thought much of, being called cynic and trifler by the Eretrians; but subsequently he was so much admired by his countrymen that they entrusted him with the chief government of the state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was greatly honored everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius; and, as the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to remit fifty. And having been falsely accused to him as having betrayed the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter which begins thus:
“Menedemus to king Demetrius.—Health. I hear that information has been laid before you concerning us. …” And the tradition is, that a man of the name of Aeschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus, as Euphantus relates in his History.
Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed himself his pupil; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which begins thus:
“The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has defeated the barbarians in battle, and has returned to his own kingdom, and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes, it has seemed good to the council and to the people. …” And from these circumstances, and because of his friendship for him as shown in other matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him; and being impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and returned to Oropus, and there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus; and as some golden goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general vote of the Boeotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great despondency, he entered his country secretly; and taking with him his wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus, and there died of a broken heart.
But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him, saying that while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought in Demetrius the tyrant; so that he never could have betrayed the city to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false; and that he went to the court of Antigonus, and endeavored to effect the deliverance of his country; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell into despondency and starved himself for seven days, and so he died. And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account: and Persaeus was the only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel; for he thought that when Antigonus himself was willing to reestablish the democracy among the Eretrians for his sake, Persaeus prevented him. And on this account Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and among them: “He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man that lives or that ever will live.”
And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four. And we have written the following epigram on him:
I’ve heard your fate, O Menedemus, that of your own accord, You starved yourself for seven days and died; Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man, For spiritless despair appears your guide.
These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors; but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy, and to his successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation.