Biography
Other info : Bibliography
Cercidas (or Kerkidas, Greek: Κερκιδᾰς; 3rd century BCE) was a poet, Cynic philosopher, and legislator for his native city Megalopolis. A papyrus roll containing fragments from seven of his Cynic poems was discovered at Oxyrhynchus in 1906.
Cercidas 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.
