Icaromenippus or The Sky-man

​Menippus And most of all I was moved to laugh at those disputing about the boundaries of land, and at those who prided themselves on farming the Sicyonian plain, or on possessing the parts around Oenoe at Marathon, or on owning a thousand plethra at Acharnae; since all Greece, as it then appeared to me from above, was about four fingers in size, and in proportion, I suppose, Attica was but a tiny fraction of it. So I was thinking how little was left for these rich men to pride themselves on; for almost the one with the most plethra seemed to me to be farming a single one of Epicurus’ atoms. And looking away indeed also toward the Peloponnese, then seeing the Cynurian land, I remembered for how small a territory, in no way wider than an Egyptian lentil, so many of the Argives and Lacedaemonians fell in a single day. And indeed, if I should see anyone priding himself on gold, because he had eight rings and four cups, I would have laughed heartily at him too; for the whole of Mount Pangaeum, with its mines, was about the size of a millet seed to them.

​Friend O blessed Menippus, because of your extraordinary sight! But by Zeus, how large did the cities and the men themselves appear from above? Menippus I suppose you have already often seen an assembly of ants, some crowding around the mouth of the nest and carrying on public affairs in the middle, some going out, and others returning again to the city; and one carries out dung, while another, having snatched from somewhere either a bean-pod or a half-grain of wheat, runs carrying it. And it is likely that among them, in proportion to the life of ants, there are also some builders, demagogues, prytaneis, musicians, and philosophers. At any rate, the cities, men and all, most resembled anthills. But if the comparison seems small to you, to liken men to the commonwealth of ants, examine the ancient myths of the Thessalians; for you will find that the Myrmidons, the most warlike tribe, became men from ants. When, therefore, everything had been sufficiently observed and laughed at by me, shaking myself I flew up: “To the dwellings of aegis-bearing Zeus, after the other deities.”

​Menippus I had not yet ascended a stadium when the Moon, sending forth a woman’s voice, “Menippus,” she said, “may you prosper thus, do me a service to Zeus.” “You may speak,” said I; “for nothing is heavy, unless it is necessary to carry something.” “Deliver,” she said, “some embassy, not a difficult one, and a petition from me to Zeus; for I am already exhausted, Menippus, hearing many terrible things from the philosophers, who have no other business than to busy themselves with my affairs—who I am, and how large, and for what reason I become halved or gibbous. And some say that I am inhabited, others that I hang over the sea like a mirror, and others attach to me whatever each one imagines. And finally, they say that my light itself is stolen and illegitimate, coming from above from the Sun, and they do not stop, purposing to set me at variance and make me rebel against him, who is my brother; as if it were not enough for them what they have said about the Sun himself, that he is a stone and a red-hot mass.”