Cercidas

(Κερκιδᾶς).

1. A poet, philosopher, and legislator for his native city, Megalopolis. At his death he ordered the first and second books of the Iliad to be buried with him. (Ptol. Hephaest. apud Phot. Cod. 190, p. 1.51, a., 14, ed. Bekker.) Aelian (Ael. VH 13.20) relates that Cercidas died expressing his hope of being with Pythagoras of the philosophers, Hecataeus of the historians, Olympus of the musicians, and Homer of the poets, which clearly implies that he himself cultivated these four sciences. Works

He was a disciple of Diogenes, whose death he recorded in some Meliambic lines. (D. L. 6.76.) He is mentioned and cited by Athenaeus (viii. p. 347e., 12.554, d.) and Stobaeus (4.43, 58.10). Same person as Cereidas the Arcadian

He appears to be the same person as Cereidas the Arcadian, who is mentioned by Demosthenes among those Greeks, who, by their cowardice and corruption, enslaved their states to Philip. (De Coron. p. 324; see the reply of Polybius to this accusation, 17.14.)

2. A Megalopolitan, who was employed by Aratus in an embassy to Antigonus Doson to treat of an alliance, B. C. 224. He returned home after he had succeeded in his mission, and he afterwards commanded a thousand Megalopolitans in the army which Antigonus led into Laconia, B. C. 222. (Polyb 2.48-50, 65.) He may have been a descendant of the preceding, but on this point we have no information. [P.S]