Étym. v. μένανδρος.

• MENANDER (Μένανδρος), an Athenian officer in the Syracusan expedition, was, together with Euthydemus, associated in the supreme command with Nicias, towards the end of the year B. C. 414. The operations of Menander and his colleague Euthydemus are narrated in the life of the latter. [Vol. II. p. 123, b.] (Thuc. vii. 16, 43, 69; Diod, xiii. 13; Plut. Nicias, c. 20.) It appears to have been this same Menander whom we find serving under Alcibiades in the campaign against Pharnabazus, in the winter of B. C. 409—408 (Xen. Hell. i. 2. § 16), and probably the same who was appointed, with Tydeus and Cephisodotus in B. C. 405, to share the command of the Athenian fleet with the generals who had been previously appointed—Conon, Philocles, and Adeimantus. He was therefore one of the commanders at the disastrous battle of Aegos-potami; and he and Tydeus are especially mentioned as rejecting with contempt the advice of Alcibiades before the battle. (Id. ii. 1. §§ 16, 26.) (Wikisource | public domain)
• MENANDER (Μένανδρος). 1, An officer in the service of Alexander, one of those called ἑταῖροι, but who held the command of a body of mercenaries. He was appointed by Alexander, during the settlement of the affairs of Asia made by that monarch when at Tyre (B. C. 331), to the government of Lydia, and appears to have remained at that post till the year 323, when he was commissioned to conduct a reinforcement of troops to Alexander at Babylon, where he arrived just before the king's last illness. (Arrian, Anab. iii. 6. § 12, vii. 23. § 2.) In the division of the provinces, after the death of Alexander, he received his former government of Lydia, of which he hastened to take possession. (Arrian, ap. Phot. p. 69, b.; Dexippus, ibid. p. 64, a.; Justin, xiii. 4; Curt. x. 30. § 2; Diod. xviii. 3, erroneously has Meleager instead.) He appears to have early attached himself to the party of Antigonus, to whom he was the first to give information of the ambitious schemes of Perdiccas for marrying Cleopatra. (Arrian, ap. Phot. p. 70, b.) In the new distribution of the provinces at Triparadeisus he lost his government of Lydia, which was given to Cleitus (Id. p. 72, a.); but this was probably only in order that he might cooperate the more freely with Antigonus, as we find him commanding a part of the army of the latter in the first campaign against Eumenes (B. C. 320). The following year, on learning the escape of Eumenes from Nora, he advanced with an army into Cappadocia to attack him, and compelled him to take refuge in Cilicia. (Plut. Eum. 9; Diod. xviii. 59.) From this time no farther mention of Menander is found in history. 2. An officer appointed by Alexander to command a fortress in Bactria, whom he afterwards put to death for abandoning his post. (Plut. Alex. 57.) 3. A native of Laodiceia, who was a general of cavalry in the service of Mithridates, and figures on several occasions in the wars of that monarch. He was one of those selected to command the army under the king's son, Mithridates, which was opposed to Fimbria, B. C. 85 (Memnon, c. 34); and again in the operations against Lucullus, near Cabeira, he commanded a detachment of the army of Mithridates, which was destined to cut off a convoy of provisions guarded by Sornatius, but was defeated by that general with heavy loss. (Plut. Lucull. 17.) He afterwards fell a prisoner into the hands of Pompey, and was one of the captives who served to adorn his triumph. (App. Mithr. 117.) (Wikisource | public domain)
• MENANDER (Μένανδρος), king of Bactria, was, according to Strabo (xi. 11), one of the most powerful of all the Greek rulers of that country, and one of those who made the most extensive conquests in India. Plutarch tells us that his rule was mild and equitable, and that he was so popular with his subjects, that the different cities under his authority, after vying with each other in paying him funeral honours, insisted upon dividing his remains among them. (De Rep. Ger. p. 821.) Both these authors term him king of Bactria; but recent inquirers are of opinion that he did not reign in Bactria Proper, but only in the provinces south of the Paropamisus, or Indian Caucasus. (Lassen, Gesch. d. Bactr. Kön. p. 225, &c.; Wilson's Ariana, p, 282.) According to Strabo (l. c.), he extended his conquests beyond the Hypanis or Sutlej, and made himself master of the district of Pattalene at the mouths of the Indus. These conquests appear to have been related by Trogus Pompeius in his forty-first book (see Prol. Lib. xli.), but they are omitted by Justin. The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean sea, commonly ascribed to Arrian, tells us (p. 27, ed. Huds.) that silver coins of Menander and Apollodotus were still in circulation in his day among the merchants of Barygaza (Baroach); and they have been discovered in modern times in considerable numbers in the countries south of the Hindoo Koosh, and even as far east as the Jumna. (Wilson, p. 281.) The period of his reign is wholly uncertain. (Wikisource | public domain)
• MENANDER (Μένανδρος), of Athens, the most distinguished poet of the New Comedy, was the son of Diopeithes and Hegesistrate, and flourished in the time of the successors of Alexander. He was born in Ol. 109. 3, or B. C. 342–1, which was also the birth-year of Epicurus; only the birth of Menander was probably in the former half of the year, and therefore in B. C. 342, while that of Epicurus was in the latter half, B. c. 341. (Suid. s. v.; Clinton, F. H. sub ann.) Strabo also (xiv. p. 526) speaks of Menander and Epicurus as συνεφήϐους. His father, Diopeithes, commanded the Athenian forces on the Hellespont in B. C. 342—341, the year of Menander's birth, and was defended by Demosthenes in his oration περὶ τῶν ἐν Χερσονήσῳ. (Anon. de Com. p. xii.) On this fact the grammarians blunder with their usual felicity, not only making Menander a friend of Demosthenes, which as a boy he may have been, but representing him as inducing Demosthenes to defend his father, in B. C. 341, when he himself was just born, and again placing him among the dicasts on the trial of Ctesiphon, in B. C. 330, when he was in his twelfth year. (Meineke, Menand. Reliq. p. xxiv.) Alexis, the comic poet, was the uncle of Menander, on the father's side (Suid. s. v. Ἄλεξις); and we may naturally suppose, with one of the ancient grammarians (Anon. de Com. p. xii.), that the young Menander derived from his uncle his taste for the comic drama, and was instructed by him in its rules of composition. His character must have been greatly influenced and formed by his intimacy with Theophrastus and Epicurus (Alciph. Epist. ii. 4), of whom the former was his teacher (Diog. Laërt. v. 36), and the latter his intimate friend. That his tastes and sympathies were altogether with the philosophy of Epicurus is proved, among numerous other indications, by his epigram on 'Epicunis and Themistocles.' (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 203, Anth. Pal. vii. 72, vol. i. p. 327, Jacobs.) Χαῖρε, Νεοκλείδα δίδυμον γένος, ὧν ὁ μὲν ὐμῶν ⁠Πατρίδα δουλοσύνας, ὁ δ᾽ ἀφροσύνας. (Wikisource | public domain)