MENAM, the chief river highway of Siam, on whose yearly rise and fall depends the rice crop of Lower Siam. Rising in the state of Nan, upon the mountain mass of Doi Luang, it is known as the Nam Ngob, after a village of that name. As the Nam Nan, it flows southward between high forested ranges, and, notwith standing the frequent rapids along its course, is used by the natives for the transport of hill produce. From Utaradit it flows through the plain of Lower Siam, is navigable for large flat bottomed native craft and is known as the Menam Pichai. Below Pichai the river flows through forest and swamp, the latter pro viding vast overflow basins for the yearly floods. Thousands of tons of fish are caught and cured here during the fall of the river. Below Pitsunalok the waters of the Menam Yom, upon which two ancient capitals, Sawankalok and Sukotai, were situated, meander by tortuous clayey channels to the main river, and coin.
bine to form the Nam Po. At Paknam Po the main western tributary comes in, the shallow Me Ping, the river of Raheng and Chieng Mai, bringing with it the waters of the Me Wang. As the chief duty-station for teak, and as a place of transshipment for boats, Paknam Po is an important and growing town. From this point the river winds by many channels through the richest and most densely populated portion of Siam. About Chainat the Tachin branches off, forming the main western branch of the Menam, and falling into the gulf about 24 m. west of the bar of the main river. At Ayuthia, the Nam Sak flows in from the north east, affording communication with the tobacco district of Pecha bun, and draining the western slopes of the Korat escarpment. MENANDER (MEvav6pos) (c. B.c.), the chief poet of the Greek New Comedy, was the son of a wealthy Athen ian, Diopeithes, of the deme Cephisia, and his wife, Hegesistrate. Alexis, the distinguished poet of the Middle Comedy, was his uncle. Of his uneventful life almost nothing is known. He was a pupil of Theophrastus (Diog. L., v.36) as was also Demetrius of Phalerum (Diog. L., v. 39, v. 75), who in 317 B.C. had been appointed by Cassander to be governor of Athens, and with whom Menander was on friendly terms (Diog. L., v.79). Phae drus, Fab. v. 1, tells how Demetrius was fawned upon not merely by prominent politicians but also by retired lovers of ease .. "among whom Menander, famous for his comedies—whom Deme trius had not known personally though he had read him and ad mired his genius—came, perfumed and in flowing robe, with lan guid step and slow. Seeing him at the end of the line the tyrant asked "What effeminate is that who dares to enter my presence?" Those nearest replied "This is Menander, the writer!" He was no doubt acquainted also with his distinguished contemporary, Epicurus (Strabo, 638). He declined an invitation from the court
of Macedon, as also one from Ptolemy Soter to Alexandria (Plin. N.H. vii. III. Alciphr, Ep. iv.I8) and remained in Athens till his death, which is said to have occurred through drowning in the Bay of Phalerum (schol. Ovid, Ibis). His tomb beside the ceno taph of Euripides between Athens and the Peiraeeus was seen by Pausanias. Of his personal appearance we are told that he had a squint (Suidas, s.v. Mbiav6pos). His portrait is supposed to be represented by a head in the Vatican.
He appears to have produced his first play, in and he won his first victory, according to the Marmor Parium, in 316/5. According to Apollodorus ap. Aul. Gell. xvii. 5 Menander "of Cephisia, son of Diopeithes, wrote 105 dramas and died at 52," but won the prize only eight times. In his own day Philemon was preferred to him. (Quintil. x.1.72.) "Yet other comic poets . . . and especially Philemon, who, if by the verdicts of his own time he was often wrongly preferred to Menander, is universally allowed to have deserved to be considered second to him" (cf. Aul. Gell. xvii. 4.1). Menander was often defeated by Philemon, by no means his equal as a writer, through canvassing and faction. Meeting him on one occasion "Excuse me, Philemon," he said, "when you defeat me, do you not blush?" (Martial v.io Rara coronato plausere theatra Menandro). But after his death he came to be regarded not merely as the leading poet of the New Comedy, but as the chief representative of comedy in general. At the beginning of the 19th century all that was extant of Menander was a number of fragments, some of uncertain source, quoted by grammarians or other writers, and a collection of single lines of a sententious character (NIEva.vopov yvc.7),uat 85o in all, and not all of them authentic. Considerable informa tion as to the character of his plays was to be gathered at second hand from the use made of them by Plautus, who based his Bacchides on the Dis Exapaton, his Poenulus probably on the Karchedonios, his Stichus on the Adelphoi, one of the two plays of that name written by Menander, and still more from Terence —who is saluted by Julius Caesar in the well known epigram (Sueton. Vit. Ter.) as "dimidiate Menander," "Menander in half" —of whose plays the Andria is a "contamination" of Menander's Andria and Perinthia, the Eunuchus a "contamination" of the Eunouchos and Kolax, the Heautontimorumenos a version of a play of the same name by Menander, while the Adelphoi is based on Menander's Adelphoi and the Synapothneskontes of Diphilus.