Cercidas

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Cercidas (or Kerkidas, Greek: Κερκιδᾰς), who lived during the 3rd century BCE, was a poet, Cynic philosopher, and legislator for his native city Megalopolis.

He was an admirer of Diogenes, whose death he recorded in some Meliambic lines.[1] He is mentioned and cited by Athenaeus[2] (who cites him as a source for the cult of Venus Kallipygos) and Stobaeus.[3] At his death he ordered the first and second books of the Iliad to be buried with him.[4] Aelian[5] 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 his esteem for these four disciplines.

He commanded his city's infantry contingent at the battle of Sellasia in 222 BC. He appears to be a descendant of Cercidas the Arcadian,[6] who is mentioned by Demosthenes among those Greeks, who, by their cowardice and corruption, enslaved their states to Philip II of Macedon.

An Oxyrhynchus papyrus with the title "the meliambic poems of Cercidas the Cynic", was discovered in 1906.[7] His poems are filled with moralistic themes such as the uneven distribution of wealth and the unfortunate results of luxurious living.[8] There are seven poem fragments attributable to Cercidas. The longest fragment contains a discussion of the nature of the gods and of divine providence, in which Cercidas declares that the current beliefs do not square with the facts of life:

[why did God not] choose that greedy cormorant wealthpurse,
that sweet-scented out-of-control Xenon, make him a pathetic poor man,
and transfer to us who deserve it the silver that now
is uselessly flowing away? What can there be to prevent god -
supposing you asked him the question - since a god,
whatever comes into his mind, can easily get it all done,
if a man is a turd of a loan-shark, a real old die-for-a-penny
who squanders it all out again, one who's the death of his fortune,
why can't God just empty this man of his swinewealth,
and give to a thin-feeding, common-bowl cup-dipper
all the man's damned expenditure? Has the eye of Justice been mole-blinded?[9]

Cercidas goes on to explain that he would rather leave the fictitious gods to the astrologers, and worship the tried Paean, Giving, and Retribution, that is, beneficence for those afflicted in body or spirit and punishment for wrongdoers. Another poem is erotic, teaching the cheap and easy way of love. Another fragment, apparently biographical, expressing the poet's satisfaction that he has devoted himself to the service of the Muses all his life.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Diogenes Laertius, vi. 76.
  2. ^ Athenaeus, viii., xii.
  3. ^ Stobaeus, iv. 43, lviii. 10.
  4. ^ Ptolemaeus Hephaestus, ap. Photius, Cod. 190.
  5. ^ Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 20.
  6. ^ Williams, F: "Cercidas: The Man and the Poet",Beyond the Canon = Hellenistica Groningana 11. Page 345. Peeters, Leuven ISBN 978-90-429-1813-9
  7. ^ Oxyrhynchus papyrus, no. 1082.
  8. ^ Clayman, D., Callimachus' Iambi, page 69. BRILL. (1980).
  9. ^ Cercidas, fragment 2, quoted in: Graham Shipley, The Greek World After Alexander, 323-30 B.C., page 184. Routledge.

[edit] References

  • Cercidas from William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870).