ike manner, the possessions of his
foes were secure from his designs, since it was no easy task, he
thought, to steal from people on their guard; but it was his
particular good fortune to have discovered how easy it is to rob a
friend in the midst of his security. If it were a perjured person or a
wrongdoer, he dreaded him as well armed and intrenched; but the
honourable and the truth-loving he tried to practise on, regarding
them as weaklings devoid of manhood. And as other men pride themselves
on piety and truth and righteousness, so Menon prided himself on a
capacity for fraud, on the fabrication of lies, on the mockery and
scorn of friends. The man who was not a rogue he ever looked upon as
only half educated. Did he aspire to the first place in another man's
friendship, he set about his object by slandering those who stood
nearest to him in affection. He contrived to secure the obedience of
his solders by making himself an accomplice in their misdeeds, and the
fluency with which he vaunted his own capacity and readiness for
enormous guilt was a sufficient title to be honoured and courted by
them. Or if any one stood aloof from him, he set it down as a
meritorious act of kindness on his part that during their intercourse
he had not robbed him of existence.

(3) For a less repulsive conception of Menon's character, however
unhistorical, see Plato's "Meno," and Prof. Jowlett's
Introduction, "Plato," vol. i. p. 265: "He is a Thessalian
Alcibiades, rich and luxurious--a spoilt child of fortune."

As to certain obscure charges brought against his character, these may
certainly be fabrications. I confine myself to the following facts,
which are known to all. He was in the bloom of youth when he procured
from Aristippus the command of his mercenaries; he had not yet lost
that bloom when he became exceedingly intimate with Ariaeus, a
barbarian, whose liking for fair young men was the explanation; and
before he had grown a beard himself, he had contracted a similar
relationship with a bearded favourite named Tharypas. When his
fellow-generals were put to death on the plea that they had marched
with Cyrus against the king, he alone, although he had shared their
conduct, was exempted from their fate. But after their deaths the
vengeance of the king fell upon him, and he was put to death, not like 29
Clearchus and the others by what would appear to be the speediest of
deaths--decapitation--but, as report says, h