Menippus, of Gadara in Syria (third century BC), a Cynic philosopher who satirized (in Greek) the follies of men and philosophers in a serio-comic style, using a mixture of prose and verse. He was a slave who later acquired his freedom. His writings are lost, but they were imitated in Latin by Varro in his Saturae Menippeae and by Lucian in his dialogues. Menippus himself figures frequently in the latter's ‘Dialogues of the Dead’, and one of Lucian's satires bears his name.

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