Cercidas

Cercidas (or Kerkidas, Ancient Greek: Κερκιδᾶς; 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. He is mentioned and cited by Athenaeus (who cites him as a source for the cult of Venus Kallipygos) and Stobaeus. At his death he ordered the first and second books of the Iliad to be buried with him.Aelian 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, who is mentioned by Demosthenes among those Greeks, who, by their cowardice and corruption, enslaved their states to Philip II of Macedon.

In Sophists, Socratics and Cynics, D. Rankin notes that Cercidas “was active in the politics of his city…[and]…was appointed nomothetes, or legislative commissioner, with the task of drawing up a new constitution”. But in his poetry, he was a harsh critic of the wealthy, and called for justice and revenge (Nemesis) upon them, also invoking Fortune, asking why she didn’t “reduce to poverty the profligate Xenon and give us the money now running to futility?”. He refers to the profligate wealthy as “dirty-cheat usurers” misusing their “stink-pig wealth”, as misers, and "ruin merchants". He invokes Justice and asks why she – and all the gods on Olympus – are so blind. But most significant is his invocation of Nemesis, “the spirit of earthly retribution” to attack the wealthy for their profligacy and to attack the system of wealth itself, rather than specific acts of injustice or inequality - a profound theme of the Cynics.

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