Menestheus

“ Aphidnæ being won by Castor and Pollux, and the city of Athens being in consternation, Menestheus persuaded the people to opeu their gates, and receive them with all manner of friendship, for they were, he told them, at enmity with none but Theseus, who had first injured them, and were benefactors and saviors to all mankind beside. And their behavior gave credit to those promises; for, having made themselves absolute masters of the place, they demanded no more than to be initiated, since they were as nearly related to the city as Hercules was, who had received the same honor. ”

“ It will be observed that, when he does mention Athenian leaders, Menestheus the king, Bias, Stichios, and Pheidas, Homer does not, as is his custom, assign to any one of them a divine ancestor, nor even name the father of any one of them, except Petoos, father of Menestheus. He tells no anecdote about any of them. In the Catalogue (ii. 546-551) the Athenians alone appear as worshippers of dead men, though in Mycenaean pre-Homeric Greece this rite was certainly part of religion, as also in historic Greece, and in Attica it has an uninterrupted record. ”

“ There are other untrue traditions current among the mass of mankind, who have no research and take for gospel all they heard as children in the choruses and tragedies. One such tradition is that Theseus himself was king, and that after the death of Menestheus his descendants continued kings even to the fourth generation. But if I had a fancy for genealogies, I should certainly have enumerated all the kings from Melanthus to Cleidicus the son of Æsimidas as well as these.
Here too is painted the action of the Athenians at Mantinea, who were sent to aid the Lacedæmonians. ”

“ Mnesimăche, a daughter of Dexamenus king of Olenus, courted by Eurytion, whom Hercules killed. Apollodorus, bk. 2.
Mnesimăchus, a comic poet.
Mnester, a freedman of Agrippina, who murdered himself at the death of his mistress. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 14, ch. 9.
Mnestheus, a Trojan, descended from Assaracus. He was a competitor for the prize given to the best sailing vessel by Æneas, at the funeral games of Anchises in Sicily, and became the progenitor of the family of the Memmii at Rome. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 116, &c.――A son of Peteus. See: Menestheus.――A freedman of Aurelian, &c. ”

“ I wish I could start a sturdy sect like old Menno Simonis did. They should dress as these have done, and be as stubborn and rigid in their discipline. They should farm as these have done, but on reaching the point where the Mennonite buys the automobile, that money and energy should go into the making of cross-roads palaces for the people, golden as the harvest field, and disciplined well-parked villages, good as a psalm, and cities fair as a Mennonite lady in her prayer-covering, delicate and noble as Athens the unforgotten, the divine. ”

“ Thomas hesitated, then, being bold by nature, determined that he would see the thing through. After all, Menzi was an impostor and nothing else, and could work no more magic than he could himself. Here was a providential opportunity to expose him. So followed by the others he advanced into the crowd, which made way for him.
In an open space in its centre, sat Menzi wearing all his witch-doctor’s trappings, bladders in his hair, snakeskins tied about him, and the rest, but even in this grotesque attire still managing to look dignified. ”

“ The father of Menenius, too, stood beside him, and marked the reviving glow in his son's cheek with joy, although there was a deep and thoughtful shadow on his brow, which brightened into something of triumph and of hope, as his eye ran over the bold and swelling muscles of his frame, and thought that but a few days more would restore that frame to all its pristine vigour. The triumph and the hope were those of a true son of ancient Greece, for they were kindled and inspired by the proud thought that the energetic strength of mind and body which were no longer united in himself ”

“ As Menon led him away, he waved a loving farewell to the god.
The most wonderful time was after the sacrifice to Zeus before the great temple with its deep porches and its marble watchers in the gable. The altar was a huge pile of ashes. For hundreds of years Greeks had sacrificed here. The holy ashes had piled up and piled up until they stood as a hill more than twenty feet high. The people waited around the foot of it, watching. The priests walked up its side. Men led up the sleek cattle to be slain for the feast of the gods. ”

“ While we rejoice at the growth in numbers, we can not but share in the generally expressed regret that there are so many different bodies of Mennonites. Some have left the parent body on the ground that the Mennonite Church is too strict in its discipline, others on the ground that it is not strict enough. ”

“ There is, again, the family nurse, garrulous but faithful; and sometimes we have another of the household in the person of the family cook. Lastly, there is the hateful slave-merchant, the most repulsive character in the Greek and Roman drama, and upon whose ways and doings there is no need for us here to dwell.
The philosophy of Menander has been spoken of as distinctly of an Epicurean character, and his morality is certainly no whit higher than that of his age and times. ”

“ So Menesius bade his young charge farewell, not, however, without giving him, in parting, most urgent counsels to persevere, as he had begun, in the faithful performance of his duty, to resist every temptation to idleness or excess, and to devote himself, while young, with patience, perseverance, and industry to the work of storing his mind with useful knowledge, and of acquiring every possible art and accomplishment which could be of advantage to him when he became a man. ”

“ When the sovereign had become a pest instead of a blessing, he believed that Heaven would raise up some one for the help of the people, some one who should so conduct himself in his original subordinate position as to draw all eyes and hearts to himself. Let him then raise the standard not of rebellion but of righteousness, and he could not help attaining to the highest dignity. Mencius hoped to find one among the rulers of his day who might be made into such a minister, and he counselled one and another to adopt measures with that object. ”

“ Outside the building on a patch of higher land, an upthrown plateau of rock, where presently all gathered beyond the reach of the waters, stood Menzi and Tabitha. Thomas looked at him and said:
“Doubtless you think that your spells have worked well, Witch-doctor, for see the ruin about us. Yet I hold otherwise, and say, ‘Wait till the end!’ To set a rock rolling down a hill is easy for those who have the strength. But who knows on whom it will fall at last?”
“You speak foolishly, Teacher,” answered Menzi. ”

“ Menander and his successors—they lasted barely two generations—printed in a few stereotypes a small and very worthless society at Athens. There was no doubt a similar set of people at Corinth, at Thebes, possibly even in the city of Lycurgus. These people, idle, for the most part rich, and in good society, spent their earlier years in debauchery, and their later in sentimental reflections and regrets. They had no serious object in life, and regarded the complications of a love affair as more interesting than the rise and fall of kingdoms or the gain and loss of a nation's liberty. ”

“ Then the deputy called to one Menahem, a usurer that dwelt in the village, and one of those who would sell their souls for a shekel. ‘Menon,’ he said—for they had changed his name after their fashion to one of their own tongue—‘Menon, come forth, and do your office.’ And then he turned to the people, and said, ‘Hearken to me, ye Jews. This Menon here, who is known to all of us, has been promoted to great honour, for my lord Philip, who is the lieutenant of the Divine Antiochus, has made him priest. ”

“ But first our thanks to the gods.”
A slave had poured a little wine into a flat cup and stood now offering it to his master. Menon took it and held it high, looking up into the blue heavens.
“O gracious Hermes!” he cried aloud, “fulfill thy omen! And to Zeus, the father, and to all the immortals be thanks.”
As he prayed he turned the cup and spilled the wine upon the ground. That was the god’s portion. A slave spread down a rug for his master to lie upon and put cushions under his elbow. Glaucon did the same for Charmides, and the meal began. ”

“ They began with Gods and ancestors, and the legendary history of Athens, to which succeeded an almost equally fictitious account of later times. The Persian war usually formed the centre of the narrative; in the age of Isocrates and Demosthenes the Athenians were still living on the glories of Marathon and Salamis. The Menexenus veils in panegyric the weak places of Athenian history. The war of Athens and Boeotia is a war of liberation ”

“ I am persuaded that, in holding this language, the Abbé de la Mennais was sincere. When an exclusive idea or passion sways a man's mind, nothing is more unknown to him than his own future conduct; he knows even less what he will do than what he is doing. The Abbé de la Mennais no more suspected in 1831 what he would say and what he would do a few years later, than the most violent leaders of the French Revolution suspected in 1789 what they would be and what they would do in 1793. ”

“ As soon as he was dead, no one thought any more of him, but Mnestheus reigned over the Athenians, while Theseus's children were brought up as private citizens by Elephenor, and followed him to Ilium. When Mnestheus died at Ilium, they returned home and resumed their rightful sovereignty. In subsequent times, among many other things which led the Athenians to honour Theseus as a hero or demi-god, most remarkable was his appearance at the battle of Marathon, where his spirit was seen by many, clad in armour, leading the charge against the barbarians. ”

“ It makes Menes four years older than he is generally supposed to have been. It is the accuracy of the date that sets one pondering. Menes, the first-known Egyptian king, and the founder of Memphis, was born here. If he established his dynasty here six thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine years ago, he must have been born some time before that date; and to be a ruler he must have been of noble parents, and no doubt received a good education. I should like to know what sort of a place, as to art, say, and literature, and architecture, Thinis was seven thousand and four years ago. ”

“ Whether the Menexenus is a genuine writing of Plato, or an imitation only, remains uncertain. In either case, the thoughts are partly borrowed from the Funeral Oration of Thucydides; and the fact that they are so, is not in favour of the genuineness of the work. Internal evidence seems to leave the question of authorship in doubt. There are merits and there are defects which might lead to either conclusion. ”

“ In his rivalry with the latter, to whom in the Phaedrus Plato shows a strong antipathy, he is entirely successful, but he is not equal to Thucydides. The Menexenus, though not without real Hellenic interest, falls very far short of the rugged grandeur and political insight of the great historian. The fiction of the speech having been invented by Aspasia is well sustained, and is in the manner of Plato, notwithstanding the anachronism which puts into her mouth an allusion to the peace of Antalcidas, an event occurring forty years after the date of the supposed oration. ”

“ To Menelaüs joined, though East and West
Have been engulfed for her in common woe.
Aegisthus: But Menelaüs nursed no secret love,275
Which closed his heart unto his lawful wife.
Thy lord seeks charge against thee, cause of strife.
Suppose thy heart and life were free from guilt:
What boots an honest life, a stainless heart,
When hate condemns the suppliant unheard?280
Wilt thou seek Sparta's shelter, and return
Unto thy father's house? No shelter waits
The scorned of kings; that hope were false indeed.
Clytemnestra: None knows my sin save one most faithful friend. ”

“ In these conversations we find questions shaped in a method quite Socratic. With this should be grouped the Mengtsze, the record of the work of the philosopher Mencius. His instruction seems, like that of his great forerunner, to have been very practical in its character. Associated with the earlier teachings of Confucius, the instruction of Mencius was accepted as the basis of the moral and the educational system of the nation. ”

“ Hence the new teaching and praxis spread rapidly from Switzerland to Germany, Holland and France. While the horrors of the Münster fanaticism, which culminated in 1534, made Anabaptism a byword, and increased the severity of a persecution directed against all Baptists indiscriminately, the reaction against the fatal errors of the Münster experiment increased also the adherents of communities which discarded the sword; thus Menno was brought into their ranks. Each community was independent, united with others only by the bond of love. ”

“ As one who is, and sees thee, always fear him.
—Trans. by J. A. SYMONDS.
MENANDER.
The acknowledged master and representative of this period, however, and the last of the classical poets of Greece, was Menan'der, an Athenian, son of Diopi'thes, the general whom Demosthenes defended in his speech "On the Chersonese," and a nephew of the poet Alexis. Menander was born in 342 B.C.; and although only fragments of his writings exist, he was so closely copied or imitated by the Roman comic poets that his style and character can be very clearly traced. ”