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MENIPPUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 131 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MENIPPUS , of See also:

Gadara in Coele-See also:Syria, See also:Greek cynic and satirist, lived during the 3rd See also:century B.C. According to See also:Diogenes Laertius (vi. 8) he was originally a slave, amassed a See also:fortune as a See also:money-lender, lost it, and committed See also:suicide through grief. His See also:works (written in a mixture of See also:prose and See also:verse) are all lost. He discussed serious subjects in a spirit of raillery, and especially delighted in attacking the Epicureans and See also:Stoics. His writings exercised considerable See also:influence upon later literature. One of the dialogues attributed to See also:Lucian, his avowed imitator, who frequently mentions him, is called Menippus. But this See also:dialogue is regarded with suspicion, and since the sub-See also:title (" The See also:Oracle of the Dead ") resembles that of a See also:work ascribed to Menippus by Diogenes Laertius, it has been suggested that it is really the work of Menippus himself, or at any See also:rate imitated from his NErcvta by the author, whether Lucian or another. It is well known that the Menippean satires of M. Terentius See also:Varro, the fragments of which give an See also:idea of this See also:kind of See also:composition, were called after Menippus of Gadara (see See also:Teuffel-See also:Schwabe, Hist. of See also:Roman Literature, § 165, 3).

End of Article: MENIPPUS

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