broke the poet's heart. In his bitter mortification at one undeserved defeat (so goes the story) he threw himself into the sea off the wall at the Piræus, and was drowned, while yet in the fulness of his powers—not much over fifty years of age. The authority is suspicious, and the act is very little in accordance with the philosophy of Menander, as we gather it from the remains of his plays. A contemporary and probably a personal friend of Epicurus (they were born in the same year), he seems to have adopted heartily the easy-going optimism of that much-abused teacher. To take human life as it was; to enjoy its pleasures, and to bear its evils cheerfully, as unavoidable: not to expect too much from others, as knowing one's own infirmities; to remember that life is short, and therefore to make the most of it and the best of it, not to waste it in vain regrets;—this is the philosophy of Menander's comedies, which on these points are occasionally only too didactic. The whole secret of it lies, he says, in three words—"Thou art man."
"The sum of all philosophy is this—
Thou art a man; than whom there breathes no creature
More liable to sudden rise and fall."[1]
This is the principle on which, by the mouth of his various characters, he is continually excusing human weaknesses, and protesting against the unreasonableness of mortal regrets and expectations:—
"Being a mortal, ask not of the gods
Escape from suffering; ask but to endure;
For if thou seekest to be ever free
- ↑ Meineke, Menandri Reliq., 188.
