Meditations VI.47

Never lose sight of the fact that men of all kinds, of all sorts of vocations and of every race under heaven, are dead; and so carry thy thought down even to Philistion and Phoebus and Origanion. Now turn to the other tribes of men. We must pass at last to the same bourne whither so many wonderful orators have gone, so many grave philosophers, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates: so many heroes of old time, and so many warriors, so many tyrants of later days: and besides them, Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes, and other acute natures, men of large minds, lovers of toil, men of versatile powers, men of strong will, mockers, like Menippus⁶⁰ and many another such, of man’s perishable and transitory life itself. About all these reflect that they have long since been in their graves. What terrible thing then is this for them? What pray for those whose very names are unknown? One thing on earth is worth much—to live out our lives in truth and justice, and in charity with liars and unjust men.

• 60.A Cynic philosopher of Gadara. His Syrian compatriot, Lucian, the prince of mockers, was yet alive and mocking. Compare Lucian’s The Fisherman 26, where the Scholiast (Arethas) refers to this passage. Diogenes Laertius mentions a Meleager, the contemporary of Menippus, as a writer of similar character.

  Menippus of Gadara was a Cynic writer of the 3rd century BC whose satires mixing prose and verse became a model for Lucian. Meleager, also of Gadara, was a poet of the 1st century BC.