183 



MEMNON. 



MENANDER. 



184 



belongs was about 24 feet, when entire. There is also an entire 

 colossal Memnon in the British Museum, 9 feet 6J inches high, which 

 is a copy of the great Memnon at Thebes. 



MEMNON of Rhodes was the brother of the wife of Artabazus, 

 the satrap of Lower Phrygia, and was advanced, together with his 

 brother Mentor, to offices of great trust and power by Darius Ochus, 

 king of Persia. We are ignorant of the time of Memnon's birth, but 

 he is mentioned by Demosthenes as a young man in B.C. 352. 

 (' Aristocrat.,' p. 672.) 



Memnon posseted great military talents, and was intrusted by 

 Darius, the last king of Persia, on the invasion of Asia by Alexander 

 of Macedon, with an extensive command in Western Asia ; but his 

 plans were thwarted and opposed by the satraps, and it was contrary 

 to his advice that the Persians offered battle to the Macedonians at 

 the Granicus. After the defeat of the Persians at the Granicus, 

 Memnon was appointed to the chief command in Western Asia, as the 

 only general who was able to oppose the Macedonians. He first 

 retired to Miletus, and afterwards withdrew to Halicarnassus in 

 Caria, which be defended against Alexander, and only abandoned at 

 last when it was no longer possible to hold out. 



After the fall of Halicarnassus, Memnon entered into negociations 

 with the Lacedaemonians, with the view of attacking Macedonia. He 

 was now completely master of the sea, and proceeded to subdue the 

 islands in the ..'Kgean. He took Chios, and obtained possession of 

 the whole of Lesbos, with the exception of Mitylene, before which 

 place he died, B.C. 333. The loss of Memnon was fatal to the Persian 

 cause : if he had lived he would probably have invaded Macedonia, 

 and thus have compelled Alexander to give up his prospects of 

 Asiatic conque-t, in order to defend his own dominions. 



(Arrian ; Diodorus Siculua ; Quintus Curtius.) 



MEMNON", a Greek historian of Heraclca in Bithynia, lived in the 

 first or second century of the Christian era. He wrote a history of 

 the tyrants of his native town, of which considerable extracts have 

 been preserved by Photius ; these extracts have also been published 

 separately. The best edition is by Urellius, Leip., 1816. They have 

 also been translated into French by the Abbd Gddoyn in the ' M<Sm. 

 do 1'Acad. des Inscriptions,' vol. xiv., p. 279-333. Photius was not 

 acquainted with the first ei^ht books of Memnon'a History, nor with 

 those which follow the sixteenth book. (Phot, c. 224.) The 

 ' Kxccrpts ' of Photius embrace a period from the assassination of 

 Clearchus to the death of Brithagoras, which was at least later than 

 B.C. 46. 



MENA, JUAN, the best Cagtilian poet of the 15th century, was 

 born about 1412 at Cordova, the ' alma ingeniorum parens,' as Nicolas 

 Antonio calls it, on account of its numerous authors, especially Latin, 

 Arabic, Hebrew, and Castilian poets. Although Mena did not show 

 an ardent love of letters till he attained his twenty-third year, yet he 

 so quickly and fully stored his mind, both in his native city and at 

 Salamanca and Rome, that he was much courted by the elegant poet 

 the Marquis of Santillana, Don Enrique de Villena, the constable 

 Alvara de Luna, and the rhymesters who attended Juan II. This 

 king appointed Mena his Latin secretary, and also his historiographer, 

 a most honourable office, which was instituted by Alphonso X., ' el 

 Sabio,' that if, ' the Learned.' A fatal pleurisy stopped Mena's career 

 in 1456 at Ton elazuna, where his friend the Marquis of Sautillana 

 erected a sumptuous monument to his memory. 



Mena's chief performance, ' El Laberiuto,' or ' Las Trescientas 

 (coplaa),' is a didactic moral poem of the allegorical kind, but-the 

 scene is different from that of Dante, and it is unlike the work of 

 the Italian poet also both in metrical form and style. It was pub- 

 lished for the first time in 1496. Quintana, a high authority ('Poesi. 

 Selec. Introduc.'), dwells on it with little of his wonted severity. 

 Southcy, on the contrary, appears to forget the age in which the 

 poem was written. The scenery, says he, and machinery, are despica- 

 ble. He has however overlooked its most glowing passages, such as 

 the patriotic end of the naval hero Conde de Niebla : he observes, 

 " There is no glimpse of imagination, and scarcely a trace of feeling " 

 in it Even the erudition of the commentator Fernan Nunez, which 

 must have been prodigious in his time, is mere schoolboys' learning, 

 according to this critic. If Mena, coming 200 years after lierceo, is 

 to be denied the title of the Spanish Eiinius, it is much to be regretted 

 that his more fortunate and immediate successors did not estimate 

 big merit, and themselves imitate him in making new words and 

 poetical forms or inflections, which are so congenial to inspiration and 

 originality of thought, and so productive of deep impressions. 



Mena also wrote some fugitive pieces ; ' La Coronacion,' in honour 

 of his patron and friend Santillana, and part of another moral 

 allegory, ' Tratado de Vicios y Virtudes.' This latter was unsuccess- 

 fully continued by Gomez Maurique, Pero Guilen (styled ' el gran 

 trobador,' probably of Segovia), and Jeronimo de Olivares, knight of 

 Alcantara. He also wrote 'La Crouica de Juan II.,' from 1420 to 

 M:;J. Some iuedited memoirs on noble families of Castile (' Libro de 

 Linages'), and a portion of the Iliad in Spanish, still in manuscript, 

 are properly attributed to him. This is not the case however either 

 with the first act or the whole of ' La Celestina, o Tragi-Comedia de 

 G'alisto y Melibea,' which was begun by Kodrigo Cota, and continued 

 in a different style by Fernan de liojas ; nor with the anonymous 

 ' Coplas de Mingo Rebulgo ' (a satirical eclogue against Enrique IV"., 



EIOO. DIV. VOL. iv. 



not Juan II., as Bouterwek has hastily fancied) ; nor the commentary, 

 which, as well as the text, belongs to Fernando del Pulgar, according 

 to Mariana (year 1472 of his history) and the learned Sarmiento 

 (' Obras Postumas"). The primary sources for Mena's biography are, 

 Bachiller Fernan Gomez de Cibda Real (' Centou Epistolario '), Valero 

 Francisco Romero ('Epicedio a Hernan Nunez'), and Sanctius 

 Brocensius, the editor of the corrected edition of all hia works, which 

 Lucas Junta published at Salamanca in small 12mo in 1582, aud 

 which was the foundation of a 25th, published in 1804 at Madrid, in 

 small Spanish 8vo, by Repulles. This has not however the glosa, or 

 comment, of Fernau Nunez above mentioned, who is not to be 

 confounded with the chronista Fernan Perez de Guzman. 



MENAGE, GILLES, was born at Angers (where his father, a man 

 of considerable learning and eloquence, held the office of ' Avocat du 

 Roi'), on the 23rd of August 1613, as he has himself informed U3 iu 

 his 'Anti-Baillet,' chap. 71, where he inveighs with no small bitterness 

 against the malignity of Baillet, who, in his ' Jugemens des Savans,' 

 had made him more than three years older than he was, forgetting, 

 observes Manage, that the older I am, the more respect he owes me, 

 and that Callistratus, the jurisconsult, on the fifth law of the Digest, 

 'De Jure Humanitatis,' has said, " Iu our state, old age hath been at 

 all times venerable ; for our ancestors were wont to give to old men 

 almost the tame honour as to magistrates." Menage began life by 

 practising as an advocate at Paris ; but finding this profession not to 

 suit his taste or his temper, he got himself made an abb<5, which 

 enabled him to hold some livings in the church without cure of souls. 

 He then resided for a time in the family of Cardinal de Rctz ; but he 

 finally established himself in a house of his own in the cloister of 

 Notre Dame, which soon became celebrated for the assemblies of men 

 of letters, whom he continued to gather around him on the Wednesday 

 evening of every week to the end of his long life, his ' Mercuriales,' 

 as he called them, from the Latin name for that day. A very consi- 

 derable range of learning, an admirable memory, and some wit enabled 

 Mdnage, notwithstanding a pedantry which was often ridiculous, to 

 maintain his position with sufficient eclat as the central figure of these 

 reunions; and he also made some small profession of gallantry, both 

 Madame La Fayette and Madame Sevignd having the honour of ranking 

 him among their avowed admirers. These social enjoyments however 

 did not prevent him from writing a great many books, which brought 

 him a wide reputation, and were highly applauded in, his own day by 

 the general voice of the literary world, although the satiric and con- 

 temptuous style in which he was apt to indulge had not failed to make 

 him a good many enemies ; and one unfortunate performance in parti- 

 cular, his ' Requete des Dictionnaires,' published in ridicule of the 

 Dictionary of the Academy, for ever shut against him the doors of 

 that institution, or at least excluded him from a seat till he thought 

 himself too old and infirm to accept one when he might have had it. 

 (See the account he himself has given of this affair iu bis 'Anti- 

 Baillet,' chap. 82.) Of hia numerous works, the following are the most 

 important : ' Origines de la Langue Francaue,' 4to, Paris, 1650, 

 afterwards enlarged and republished under the title of ' Dictionnaire 

 Etymologique do la Laugue Francaise,' folio, 1694, and 2 vols. folio, 

 1750; 'Poemata Latina, Gallica, Graca, et Italica,' Svo, Par., 1658, 

 and 12mo, Amstel., 1687; 'Observations sur la Langue Francaise,' 

 12mo, Par., 1672 ; ' Origini della Lingua Italiana,' folio, Genev., 1685 ; 

 ' Auti-Baillet,' 8vo, Par., 1685, and, along with Baillet's 'Jugemens,' 

 4to, Amst., 1725 ; a valuable edition of Diogenes Laertius, with anno- 

 tations ; and some other editions of classical and other works. After 

 his death, which took place in 1692, his friends published, under the 

 title of ' Mdnagiana,' a collection of his bon-mots and other remarks 

 made in conversation, upon the value of which Bayle, in his Dic- 

 tionary, has pronounced a high eulogium, and which is still generally 

 considered to be one of the best, if not the best, of this class of works. 

 It was originally published in two volumes, the first of which appeared 

 in 1693, the second in 1694; but the best edition is the third, pub- 

 lished in 1715, and enlarged by the additions of the learned editor, 

 M. de la Monnoye, to four volumes. 



MENAHEM, King of Israel, the son of Gadi, was ono of those 

 military leaders, who after the murder of Zechariah, assumed the 

 crown. Shallum, who had conspired against and slain Zechariah, had 

 declared himself king in B.C. 771 ; but Menahem advanced against 

 him with an army, defeated, and slew him, after a reign of thirty days. 

 Shallum seems to have been supported by the people, aud they did 

 not submit to Menahem until after a strenuous resistance. Menahem 

 " smote Tiphsah and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from 

 Tirzah, because they opened not to him," securing his sovereignty only 

 by the most savage barbarity. He was hardly seated on his throne 

 when the Assyrians, under Pul, their king, made their first irruption 

 into Judsca. Menahem was unable to resist them, but he bought 

 their departure by the payment of a thousand talents of silver 

 (upwards of 350.000A), which he raised by a levy of fifty shekels of 

 silver from "all the mighty men of wealth." He remained undisturbed 

 in his kingdom for the remainder of his days, maintaining the idolatry 

 of the golden calves, and died in B.C. 760, when he was succeeded by 

 hia sou Pekahiah. 



MENANDER (MtVovJpos), a Greek comic poet, one of that class who 

 are called the writers of the new comedy, was born B.C. 341, and died, 

 as some suppose, by drowning, B.C. 289 or 290. According to Suidas 



o 



