Relihan's scholarly career, as described in the Foreword, has been dominated by Menippus and Menippean Satire. His book on the subject was published in 1993, followed by works on later authors writing in the Menippean tradition: Boethius, Apuleius, Thomas Love Peacock, etc. Relihan originally planned a ‘universal history of Menippean satire’ over 2,300 years, making himself ‘the sort of critic that Menippean satire derides’. However, Relihan concluded that Menippean satire is so diverse and wide-ranging that it would be impossible to write a history of it. So he has turned instead to the only three surviving works in which Menippus appears as a character: Lucian's Menippus or Necromantia (The Consultation of the Corpses), Icaromenippus or A Man above the Clouds and The Colloquies of the Corpses (Dialogues of the Dead). He provides an introduction to and translation of each of these.
A brief disquisition on the art of translation follows, where Relihan hopes that the versions that he has provided will be read aloud.
The introduction to the Necromantia includes a sketch of what we know of the historical Menippus (not much). He lived in the first half of the 3rd century BC, was associated with the Cynic movement, but there are no anecdotes or philosophical quotations attributed to him. He was instead a literary man; even so, all that remains of his writings are ‘meagre fragments’, yet his literary influence has been ‘lasting’ and ‘subversive’.
Two pieces of information about Menippus are cited. The Suda describes him as going about dressed as a Fury, threatening sinners with retribution in the afterlife. Diogenes Laertius reports that he wrote a Necyia. From this Relihan postulates that Lucian's Necromantia is an adaptation of Menippus’ work – an attractive theory as so little of his writings remains.
The translation of the Necromantia is lively and readable. It comprises a dialogue between Menippus and a friend. Menippus emerges from Hades quoting Euripides and Homer (since he has met them in the Underworld). He describes his dilemma: as a child he loved the stories of the gods, but as an adult he realised that their behaviour was immoral, so he turned to philosophy for an explanation. However, there were many contradictory philosophies and many philosophers were hypocritical and did not follow their own precepts. So Menippus found a Babylonian guide, descended to the Underworld and sought out Tiresias for advice on how to live. Menippus observes sinners being punished, and especially the rich whose arrogance in life led them to believe that they were superior to others; in fact, all are equal in death. An assembly of the dead passes a decree that millionaires should be reincarnated as asses for 250,000 years working for and being beaten by the poor. Menippus is finally able to consult Tiresias, who tells him that ‘the way of life of ordinary people is best’.
The second dialogue, Icaromenippus or A Man above the Clouds, provides a companion piece to the first, as this story takes Menippus upwards to the Moon and then on to Olympus instead of down to Hades. Relihan suggests that these two dialogues should be seen as early in Menippus’ career, helping to form him as a Cynic philosopher. Menippus begins by puzzling about the cosmos and astronomy, then moves to considering the immoral behaviour of mankind; this dialogue, as in the Necromantia, shares Menippus’ disgust at immoral behaviour and the inadequacy of philosophy.
Menippus’ ridiculous method of reaching the heavens (catching an eagle and a vulture and cutting off one wing from each) is described in some length. On the way he rests on the Moon and takes the opportunity to look down on mortals, needing advice from Empedocles, who arrives charred and blackened from his death in Mount Etna, to help him see men on earth, as tiny as ants. Menippus then continues his journey and reaches Olympus, where he joins the gods in their feasting and then in an assembly. Here the gods decide to destroy the race of philosophers completely, but not until the following spring.
The third section examines the status of The Colloquies of the Corpses (Dialogues of the Dead) as ‘one of Lucian's masterpieces’. Relihan notes that this may be more because of their vast influence on subsequent literature rather than their own literary merit. They seem to have fallen out of favour in recent years compared to Lucian's other dialogues (Of the Gods, Of the Sea Gods, Of the Courtesans); they have not been included in full in the most recent anthologies of Lucian's work. However, Relihan feels that post Covid there may be more interest in the work as a whole.
Relihan acknowledges that the quality of the dialogues is patchy – some are brilliant, some can be ‘repellent’ because over-clever, pitiless or too tainted by a ‘heartless Cynic superiority to the world of ordinary mortals’. They can be repetitive, and other works of Lucian may more attractively deal with some themes. Nevertheless, as a body of work the Dialogues are worth spending time on.
There is some uncertainty about the order of the dialogues – different orders are found in different sources. Relihan follows the version which groups almost all the dialogues involving Menippus at the beginning. This makes a coherent progression, following on from the two previous works, in the development of Menippus’ character and his acquisition of wisdom, notably the encouragement of sympathy rather than scorn for suffering mortals.
The dialogues themselves certainly are amusing and witty, and Relihan's translation is eminently performable. The usual Underworld characters appear, along with famous men (not many women) from history. Recurrent themes include the equality of all after death and the vanity of human pretension; humour derives from the twisting of traditional details (Menippus can't afford to pay Charon an obol as, being a Cynic, he is too poor) or typical human situations (legacy hunting, attitudes to death).
The book concludes with an Afterword on the term ‘Menippean satire’ (not used until 1581 AD by one Justus Lipsius). Lucian is a major source, but his role seems to obscure rather than illuminate the historical Menippus. We need to consider the Menippus dialogues as a whole in order to retrieve the true character of Menippus.
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