a Cynic philosopher, with whose private history we are but very slightly acquainted. It is supposed that he was a native of Gadara, a small village of Phoenicia (Strab. xvi. 759), and that he lived before the year 200 B.C., as he is spoken of by Hermippus, according to Diogenes Laërtius. He was originally a slave, but having purchased his liberty, he settled at Thebes, where he obtained the rights and privileges of a citizen. Lucian, in his Dialogues of the Dead, makes Diogenes describe him as "old, bald-headed, wearing a threadbare cloak, with abundance of apertures in it, pervious to every wind, and patched with rags of all possible colours; and as laughing incessantly at those conceited pedants the philosophers, who are generally the objects of his derision." Varro in his Satires imitated the style of Menippus, so that they were called Satire Menippicae. (Cic. I, 2; Gell. xi. 18.; xiii. 30.)