Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​They say that he also eliminated negative propositions, positing only affirmative ones; and of these, while accepting simple propositions, he rejected non-simple ones—I mean hypothetical and conjunctive propositions. Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a Platonist, though he made sport of dialectic; so that, when Alexinus once asked him whether he had stopped beating his father, "Why, I was neither beating him," he said, "nor have I stopped." And when the former said in turn that he ought to have resolved the ambiguity by saying 'yes' or 'no', "It is ridiculous," he said, "to obey your rules, when one can resist at the gate." And when Bion was busily attacking the seers, he remarked that Bion was slaying the dead over again.

​And once, hearing someone say that it was the greatest good to attain everything one desires, he said, "It is a much greater good to desire what one ought." Antigonus of Carystus says that he wrote nothing and composed no treatise, so that he did not commit himself to any dogma. Yet in inquiries, Antigonus says, he was so pugnacious that he would walk away with black eyes. Nevertheless, being such in his words, he was gentlest in his deeds. At any rate, though he frequently mocked Alexinus and jeered at him harshly, he nonetheless did him a kindness by escorting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis, as she feared theft and highway robbery.

​He was also a most loyal friend, as is clear from his harmony with Asclepiades, which differed not a bit from the affectionate devotion of Pylades. But Asclepiades was older, so that it was said that he was the poet and Menedemus the actor. And once, they say, when Archepolis assigned three thousand drachmas to them, neither of them accepted it, as they contended over which of them should take it second. It is also said that they took wives, of whom Asclepiades married the daughter and Menedemus the mother. And when Asclepiades' little wife died, he took Menedemus' wife; while Menedemus, when he became head of the city, married a wealthy woman. Yet since there was only one household, Menedemus none the less entrusted the management of the house to his former wife.

​Asclepiades, however, died before him in Eretria, already an old man, having lived together with Menedemus in great frugality after starting from great wealth. At that time, when after a while a beloved youth of Asclepiades came to a revel and the young men tried to shut him out, Menedemus ordered them to let him in, saying that Asclepiades was opening the doors for him even from beneath the earth. Those who endowed them with property were Hipponicus the Macedonian and Agetor of Lamia; the latter gave thirty minas to each, while Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas for the marriage-portions of his daughters. There were three daughters, as Heraclides says, born to him from an Oropian wife.

​He used to conduct his dinner-parties in the following manner: he dined beforehand with two or three companions until late in the day; then someone would invite those who had arrived, who had themselves already had dinner; so that if anyone came earlier, he would turn back and ask those coming out what was being served and how things stood with the time; and if it was vegetables or salt-fish, they would depart, but if meat, they would go in. In summer there was a rush-mat upon the couches, and in winter a fleece; one had to bring one's own pillow. The cup that was passed round was no larger than a cotyle; the dessert consisted of lupines or beans, and sometimes seasonal fruits such as a pear, a pomegranate, chickpeas, or, by Zeus, dried figs.