Menon

• the name of one of Plato's dialogues, Cic. Tusc. 1, 24, 57.

(Μένων).

1. A citizen of Pharsalus in Thessaly, who aided the Athenians at Eion with 12 talents and 200 horsemen, raised by himself from his own penestae, and was rewarded by them for these services with the freedom of the city. (Dem. c. Arist. pp. 686, 687; Pseudo-Dem. περὶ δυντάξεως, p. 173; Wolf, Proleg. ad Dem. c. Lept. p. 74.) By some this Menon has been identified with the Pharsalian who commanded the troops sent from his native city to the aid of the Athenians in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, B. C. 431; while the above-mentioned assistance at Eion is referred by them to the eighth year of the same war, B. C. 424. (Thuc. 2.22, 4.102, &c.; Gedik. ad Plat. Men. p. 70.) Perhaps, however, the service may have been rendered at the siege of Eion by Cimon in B. C. 476; and in that case the Menon alluded to by Demosthenes may have been the father of the leader of Thessalian cavalry mentioned by Thucydides in B. C. 431 (Hdt. 7.107; Plut. Cim. 7; Paus. 8.8; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. iii. p. 3.) [Boges.]

2. An Athenian, a fellow-workman of Pheidias, was suborned to bring against him the accusation by which he was ruined. For this service the faction which had employed Menon obtained for him from the people the privilege of ἀτέλεια. (Plut. Per. 31.)

3. A Thessalian adventurer, was a favourite of Aristippus of Larissa, who placed him in command of the forces, which he had obtained by the help of Cyrus the Younger in order to make head against a party opposed to him. When Cyrus began his expedition, in B. C. 401, Menon was sent by Aristippus to his aid with 1500 men, and joined the prince's army at Colossae. Cyrus having reached the borders of Cappadocia, employed Menon to escort back into her own country Epyaxa, the wife of Syennesis, the Cilician king. In passing through the defiles on the frontiers Menon lost a number of his men, who, according to one account, were cut off by the Cilicians; and in revenge for this, his troops plundered the city of Tarsus and the royal palace. When the Cyrean army reached the Euphrates, Menon persuaded the soldiers under his command to be the first to cross the river, and thus to ingratiate themselves with the prince. At the battle of Cunaxa he commanded the left wing of the Greeks, and, after the battle, when Clearchus sent to Ariaeus to make an offer of placing him on the Persian throne, he formed one of the mission at his own request, as being connected with Ariaeus by ties of friendship and hospitality. He was again one of the four generals who accompanied Clearchus to his fatal interview with Tissaphernes, and was detained, together with his colleagues. Clearchus, in seeking the interview for the purpose of delivering up on both sides those who had striven to excite their mutual suspicions, had been instigated in a great measure by resentment against Menon, whom he suspected of having calumniated him to Ariaeus and Tissaphernes, with the view of obtaining the entire command of the army for himself. According to the statement which Ariaeus made to the Greeks immediately after the apprehension of the generals, Menon and Proxenus were honourably treated by the Persians, as having revealed the treachery of which he said Clearchus had been guilty; and Ctesias relates, in ignorance certainly of the details and in direct opposition to Xenophon, that Clearchus himself distrusted Tissaphernes, and that the army was induced by the arts of Menon to compel him to agree to the interview. That Menon did really act a treacherous part towards his countrymen is by no means improbable, as well from the circumstances of the case as from his character, even if we make all allowance for some colouring which Xenophon's personal hostility to the man may have thrown into his invective against him. As to his fate, Ctesias merely says that he was not executed with the other generals but Xenophon tells us that he was put to death by lingering tortures, which lasted for a whole year. If this latter account is the true one, Bishop Thirlwall's hypothesis seems not improbable, viz., that he was given up to the vengeance of Parysatis as a compensation for the rejection of her entreaties on behalf of Clearchus and his colleagues. There can be no doubt of the identity of the subject of the present article with the Menon introduced in the dialogue of Plato, which bears his name. (Xen. Anab. 1.1.10, 2. §§ 6, 20-25, 4. §§ 13-17, 5. §§ 11-17, 7.1, 8.4, 2.1.5, 2.1, 5. §§ 28, 31, 38, 6. §§ 21-29; Diod.14.19,27; Ctes. Pers. ap. Phot. Bibl. p. 132; Plut. Art. 18; D. L. 2.50; Suid. s. v. Μένων; Athen. xi. pp. 505, a, b, 506, b; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. iv. pp. 324, 325; Gedik. ad Plat. Men. p. 70.)

4. A citizen of Pharsalus in Thessaly, and a man of great influence and reputation, took a prominent part in the Lamian war, and commanded the Thessalian cavalry in the battle with the Macedonians, in which LEONNATUS was slain. Plutarch tells us that his services were highly valued by the confederates, and that he held a place in their estimation second only to Leosthenes. At the battle of Cranon (B. C. 322), he and Antiphilus, the Athenian, were defeated by Antipater and Craterus, though the Thessalian horse under his command maintained in the action its superiority over that of the enemy; and they felt themselves compelled to open a negotiation with the conquerors, which led to the dissolution of the Greek confederacy. But when Antipater was obliged to cross over to Asia against Perdiccas, the Aetolians renewed the war, and were zealously seconded in Thessaly by Menon, through whose influence it probably was that most of the Thessalian towns were induced to take part in the insurrection. Soon after, however, he was defeated by Polysperchon in a pitched battle, in which he himself was slain, B. C. 321. His daughter Phthia he gave in marriage to Aeacides, king of Epeirus, by whom she became the mother of Pyrrhus. (Diod. 18.15, 17, 38; Plut. Pyrrh. 1, Phoc. 24, 25; Droysen, Gesch. der Nachf. Alex. pp. 71, 87, 127, 155.) [E.E]

artist. [See above, No. 2.]

(Μένων). A Thessalian adventurer, one of the generals of the Greek mercenaries in the army of Cyrus the Younger, when the latter marched into Upper Asia against his brother Artaxerxes, B.C. 401. After the death of Cyrus he was apprehended along with the other Greek generals by Tissaphernes, and was put to death by lingering tortures, which lasted for a whole year. His character is drawn in the blackest colours by Xenophon. He is the same as the Menon introduced in the dialogue of Plato which bears his name.