a celebrated comic poet of Athens, was the son of Diopites and Hegistratia, and belonged to the demus of Cephissia. His family was of considerable eminence at Athens, as we find his father commanding the Athenian forces on the Hellespont in the war with Philip of Macedon, n.c.342. (Dionys. Dionys. p.666.) Menander was born n.c.342, the year before the birth of Epicurus, and he died n.c.291. At the time that Menander was born, Demosthenes was forty years of age, and Archines forty-seven. Of his private history the few facts that have been transmitted are of little moment. He was the nephew of the poet Alexis to whom he was indebted for his education; (Suid. Proleg. Aristoph. p. xxx.) though he also studied under the philosopher Theophrastus, (Diog. Laert. Theophr.) As early as his twenty-first year he exhibited his first play, entitled "Oppy," and gained a prize, (Aristoph. l. c. Euseb. Ol. 114. 4.) Authors are not agreed as to the number of plays which he composed; some say 109, others 108, (Suid.) and Apollodorus 105, (Gell.) Athenaeus mentions the titles of fifty plays. Menander wrote also letters addressed to king Ptolemaeus Soter, (306-283 n.c.), and several orations in prose. Only eight of his plays were thought worthy by the Athenian judges of receiving the crown of victory; but as Euripides was even still more unsuccessful we must not consider this as a decisive proof of their inferiority. So much indeed did the poet feel the injustice of this treatment and the unworthiness of some of those who were the successful competitors, that on meeting Philemon he inquired of him whether he did not blush when he heard himself declared victor, (Gell. xvii. 4.) Menander was accused by the ancients of plagiarism, and the grammarian Cratinus composed a work in six books on the thefts of Menander, but this accusation appears to have been dictated by envy. Menander is said to have been a great admirer of the female sex; hence Ovid (Trist. xi. 370.) has remarked that there is no comedy of Menander in which love is not introduced, and yet that the manners are sufficiently pure to allow a mother to place these dramas in the hands of her daughter. On this point we may remark that the manners of the Greeks differed much from those of the present day, and we can have no doubt that the subjects of many of them were such as would exclude them from our drawing-rooms. The titles of three of his plays, Thais, Glycerium, and Nannion, show that they treated of ladies of not the most reputable characters. It is well known that Terence carried his imitation of Menander so far as sometimes merely to translate his plays, and hence Caesar calls him Dimidiate Menander. (Epigr. ap. Donat. Vit. Terent.) It is much to be regretted that the whole of his works have perished, with the exception of a few fragments which have been preserved by different grammarians and philosophers. Menander was the founder of the new comedy, in which vices were censured without reference to particular facts, and in which the action of the play was not impeded by the presence and declamation of a chorus. It must have differed little from a modern comedy except in being somewhat less pure in manners. Plutarch has drawn a parallel between Menander and Aristophanes, in which he thus expresses his opinion of the former: "Menander can adapt his style so as to suit any character; he never loses sight of nature, is always equal to himself, and always different, according as the subject requires a change of manner; like to a limpid stream which, flowing between unequal banks, assumes all its forms without losing any of its purity. He is made to be read, represented, learned by heart, to please in every place, and every time." Quintilian says,

"He has delineated the picture of human life most accurately; his invention is fruitful, his eloquence powerful, his characters, passions, and manners, proper and natural." (x.l.)

It is said that Menander was drowned whilst he was bathing in the Piraeus at Athens; (Schol. Ovid. 593.) and the Athenians erected a tomb to his honour not far from that of Euripides, (Pausan. i. 6.) The fragments of Menander have been collected in the Poetae Graeci Minores, Cambridge, 1652. The most complete edition is that by Leclerc, Amsterdam, 1709. (See Menandri et Philémoni Reliquiae, edited by Meineke, Berlin, 1823.)