Menander of Ephesus (; fl. c. early 2nd century BC) was the historian whose lost work on the history of Tyre was used by Josephus, who quotes Menander's list of kings of Tyre in his apologia for the Jews, Against Apion (1.18).
"This Menander wrote the Acts that were done both by the Greeks and Barbarians,The reference to the acts of "both by the Greeks and Barbarians" is a clear allusion to Herodotus, who uses the same expression in the introduction to his own work. under every one of the Tyrian kings, and had taken much pains to learn their history out of their own records." All records having been lost, this second-hand report is the basis for the traditional king-list. Menander, living in a city with a considerable population of Hellenized Jews,Jewish Encyclopedia: "Ephesus". also seems to have written on the history of the Jews, often cited by Josephus.
Sources The only extant sources for the writing of Menander are citations of his work found in Josephus's two works Antiquities of the Jews and Against Apion, or in extracts from Josephus's works found in later writers. These later writers were Theophilus of Antioch, Eusebius of Caesarea, and George Syncellus. William BarnesWilliam H. Barnes, Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1991) 40. lists the following sources that scholars use to reconstruct the text of Menander: Codex Laurentianus, 10th or 11th centuries AD, has the earliest Greek manuscript for Against Apion, but Barnes (p. 70) says it is "faulty in many respects." There is an Old Latin version of Josephus's citations of Menander in the writings of Cassiodorus. Menander's list of kings from Abibaal, father of Hiram I, to Pygmalion, as taken from Against Apion 1.18, is found in the "To Autolycus" of Theophilus of Antioch. All Greek manuscripts of Eusebius's Chronography have been lost, but an Armenian translation has virtually the entire text. Fragments of Eusebius's Chronography are found in later Greek writers. Greek excerpts from the Chronography are found in Syncellus.
Contents of surviving extracts of Menander The exact title borne by Menander's lost work is not made clear by Josephus, who gives the following descriptions when he cites Menander: "Menander also, one who translated the Tyrian archives out of the dialect of the Phoenicians into the Greek language" (Ant. 8.5.3). "Menander attests to it, who, when he wrote his Chronology, and translated the Archives of Tyre into the Greek language" (Ant. 9.14.2). "Menander wrote the Acts that were done both by the Greeks and Barbarians, under every one of the Tyrian Kings" (Against Apion 1.18).
Josephus only cited Menander as a means to authenticate themes of his own writings. One such theme was the antiquity of the Jewish people, for which Josephus summoned Menander and several other non-Jewish historians to support his case. In terms of chronology, the earliest event to which Josephus calls Menander as his witness is the reign of Solomon. In Ant. 8.5.3, Josephus describes the help that Hiram, king of Tyre, provided for the building of Solomon's Temple. A description of Hiram's building projects in Tyre is then quoted from Menander in order to show the historicity of the Hiram mentioned in the Bible. A few other details about Hiram are added, including an exchange of riddles between Solomon and Hiram. In Ant. 8.13.2, the drought in Israel in the days of Elijah (1 Kings 17 and 18) is equated, by Josephus, with a drought that Menander said occurred in the days of Ethbaal (Ithobaal I, 878–847 BC), king of the Tyrians. In Ant. 9.14.2, after relating that Shalmaneser V was responsible for the destruction of Samaria (2 Kings 17:3–6), Menander is cited as bearing witness to the existence of Shalmaneser. Here Menander says that the king of Tyre during this time was named Eluleus, who reigned 36 years, and who successfully endured a siege of five years started by Shalmaneser.
To historians, the most interesting portion of Menander's writing that has been preserved in Against Apion 1.18. Here Josephus again demonstrates the antiquity of his nation, as attested by historians outside his own national tradition. Bringing up Solomon and his contemporary Hiram, Josephus cites Menander's list of the kings of Tyre from Abibalus (Abibaal), father of Hiram, down to Pygmalion, with the years of reign of each king, as well as the years of their life. For Pygmalion, it is related that "he lived fifty-eight yearsSome manuscripts give 56 years (Barnes, Studies 42,43). and reigned forty-seven. It was in the seventh year of his reign that his sister took flight, and built the city of Carthage in Libya."Josephus, Against Apion in Loeb Classical Library, tr. H. St. John Thackeray (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1956). Some manuscripts give 56 years for Hiram's lifespan instead of 58. After ending his quotation from Menander with this sentence, Josephus summarizes Menander's list of kings as follows: The whole period from the accession of Hirom (Hiram) to the foundation of Carthage thus amounts to 155 years and eight months; and, since the temple at Jerusalem was built in the twelfth year of King Hirom's reign, 143 years and eight months elapsed between the erection of the temple and the foundation of Carthage.
For a discussion of the importance of this passage in establishing the chronology of the kings of Tyre, see below, and also the Pygmalion and Hiram articles.
Modern evaluations of Menander's writings
Evaluations based on literary analysis Some modern historians have considered Josephus's ostensible citations of Menander from a literary-analysis standpoint. The important question that they were addressing was whether Josephus's quotations were just that, or were another example of his putting his own ideas and words into someone else's mouth (pen). Josephus was frequently bold to do just this, notably in cases such as when a general, addressing his troops, provided an opportunity for Josephus to display his own eloquence. However, three lines of evidence indicate that this was not the case with the texts purporting to come from Menander. The first line of evidence is literary.
Dius [another Hellenistic historian cited by Josephus] calls Solomon "the sovereign of Jerusalem" (ho turannos Ierosolumon) while Menander refers to him as "the king of Jerusalem" (ho Ierosolumon basileus). This appellation is clear proof of the Tyrian source of these passages, for the kings of the Phoenician coast, who ruled principally over one city, looked upon Solomon as a monarch of a city, like themselves; nor did Josephus correct this "flaw", even in an account where he endeavors to exalt the greatness of Solomon. Great weight must be attached to the testimony of Dius and Menander as cited by Josephus, for these are the only mentions of Solomon's name in a foreign source—perhaps a Tyrian source that stems from the time of Solomon himself!H. Jacob Katzenstein, The History of Tyre (Jerusalem: Goldberg's Press, 1973) 79-80.
The author of this passage, Jacob Katzenstein, makes two other comments that suggest that Josephus was not merely putting forth his own writing and ideas under Menander's name: The regnal years and the life-spans of the rulers are not given in round numbers, so there is no reason to doubt the veracity of this tradition. Moreover, Josephus does not digress from listing the kings of Tyre even to comment on Ethbaal (Ithobal), the father-in-law of Ahab, although he is mentioned in the Bible.Katzenstein, History of Tyre 80-81.
Commenting further on the form in which Josephus presents the years of the kings in the Against Apion passage, William Barnes writes: Indeed, the numbers appear to be taken directly from some sort of formulaic archival source or king list, which gave only the life span and regnal total for each king of Tyre plus brief remarks pertaining to his dynastic status (cf. the seemingly superfluous retention [at least for Josephus' purposes] of the numbers for the life spans of the various kings).Barnes, Studies 34.
The literary conventions mentioned by these historians have therefore led them to the position that Menander's actual words, not just Josephus's own ideas, are to be found in the various texts where Josephus says he is citing Menander.
Evaluations based on inscriptional evidence Josephus's citations of Menander contain references to Shalmaneser (V), Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, kings of Assyria that are well known both from Biblical texts and also from numerous Assyrian inscriptions. More important, however, for the question of the historicity of the Menander texts is his mention of kings who were not so famous, especially those for whom there had been no evidence outside Menander until fairly recent times. In Against Apion 1.18, Menander names Balazeros as the grandfather of Pygmalion. Frank Moore CrossF. M. Cross, "An Interpretation of the Nora Stone," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 208 (Dec. 1972) 17 n. 11. and other scholars have equated this Balazeros (Baal-Eser II) with (Ba‘l-mazzer) who gave tribute to Shalmaneser III in 841 BC (see the Baal-Eser II article for details). Against Apion 1.18 also mentions Pygmalion as a ruler of Tyre, relating that his sister Dido fled from him in his seventh year, 155 years after the beginning of the reign of Hiram I. A 9th-century BC inscription found on Sardinia apparently names Pygmalion, as described in the Pygmalion article.Cross, Nora Stone 13-19. In Ant. 9.14.2, Menander, as cited by Josephus, mentions Eluleus as refusing to pay tribute to Sennacherib (725–722 BC), whereupon the Assyrians unsuccessfully besieged Tyre for five years. The conflict of Sennacherib with "Luli", king of Tyre, is corroborated by at least three inscriptions of the Assyrian monarch.James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969) 287-288. Historians generally equate the name "Luli", in Sennacherib's Akkadian, with the Greek form Eluleus.
These inscriptional evidences for lesser-known kings not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible have therefore been taken as lending credence to Menander's writings. For each of them, the time frame that Menander assigns to them is in agreement with the time assigned to their inscriptional evidence by modern historians.
Evaluations based on the time from Hiram to Pygmalion