Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​When the tyrant replied to this by saying that he kept this day free for hearing philosophers, he pressed his attack even more severely, demonstrating over the sacrifice that one ought to listen to philosophers at all times; so that, had not a flute-player smuggled them away, they would have perished. Hence, when they were tossed by a storm at sea, Asclepiades is said to have remarked that the flute-player's skill had saved them, while Menedemus' outspokenness had ruined them. He was also, they say, unpretentious and indifferent about the formal arrangements of his school. At any rate, no order was to be seen in his presence, nor were benches set in a circle; instead, each person listened wherever he happened to be, walking about or sitting down, and he himself was disposed in the same manner.

​Nevertheless, they say he was in other respects anxious and ambitious, so that formerly, when he and Asclepiades were working together as builders under a carpenter, Asclepiades appeared naked on the roof carrying the clay, whereas he would hide himself if he saw anyone coming. When he entered political life, he was so anxious that, even when placing incense, he missed the censer. And once, when Crates was standing around him and rebuking him for taking part in politics, he ordered certain men to throw him into prison; but Crates, keeping watch none the less as he passed by, leaned over and kept calling him "Agamemnon" and "Leader of the City."

​He was also, somehow, slightly superstitious. At any rate, when he once ate meat that had been thrown out, in an inn with Asclepiades through ignorance, as soon as he found out he became nauseated and turned pale; until Asclepiades reproved him, saying that the meat had not troubled him at all, but only the suspicion regarding it. In other respects he was a magnanimous and liberal man. In bodily condition, though already an elderly man, he was no less firm than an athlete, sunburnt in appearance, well-nourished and hardened, and well-proportioned in size, as is clear from the small statue in the ancient stadium at Eretria; for it is, as if on purpose, half-naked, displaying most parts of his body.

​He was also fond of hospitality, and because of the unhealthy climate of Eretria he held rather frequent dinner-parties, among which were poets and musicians. He welcomed Aratus, the tragic poet Lycophron, and Antagoras of Rhodes; but most of all he applied himself to Homer, then also to the lyric poets, next to Sophocles, and especially to Achaeus, to whom he assigned the second prize in satyr-plays, while granting the first prize to Aeschylus. Hence, they say, he also quoted these lines against his political opponents: "So the swift was caught even by the weak, and the eagle by the tortoise in a short time."

​These lines are from the satyr-play *Omphale* of Achaeus; so those are mistaken who say that he read nothing except the *Medea* of Euripides, which some say belongs to Neophron of Sicyon. Among teachers, he despised those around Plato and Xenocrates, and also Paraebates the Cyrenaic, but he admired Stilpo; and once, when asked about him, he said nothing other than that he was a liberal man. Menedemus was also hard to grasp, and difficult to contend with in reaching an agreement; he would turn in all directions and invent verbal quibbles; and, as Antisthenes says in his *Successions*, he was extremely fond of eristic argument. Indeed, he was also accustomed to ask this question: "Is one thing different from another?" "Yes." "And is being beneficial different from the good?" "Yes." "Then being beneficial is not good."