broke out again at or shortly after his death. The Gileadites again conspired, and having slain his son Pekahiah set up Pekah the son of Remaliah in his place[1] This meant a return to an anti-Assyrian policy. (See Ahaz.) (S. A. C.)
MENAI STRAITS, a channel of the Irish Sea, separating
Anglesea from Carnarvonshire, N. Wales, extending 14 m. from
Beaumaris to Abermenai, and varying in breadth from 200 yds.
to 2 m. It is famous for the suspension and tubular bridges
which cross it. The suspension bridge carries the Holyhead
road from Bangor. Designs were prepared by T. Telford. It
was begun in 1819; the first chain carried over in April 1825;
the last in July of the same year, and the bridge opened to the
public the 30th of January 1826. The cost was £120,000. The
length of the chains (from rock-fastenings) is 1715 ft., and between
the piers 590 ft.; the length of the roadway between the
piers is 550 ft. and the total roadway length 1000 ft.; the height
of the roadway from the spring tide high-water level is 100 ft.;
the breadth of the roadway including two carriage-ways and a
footpath is 30 ft. The sixteen suspending chains are carried
60 ft. through rock. Their sustaining power has been calculated
at 2016 tons, while the whole weight of the suspended part of
the bridge is only 489 tons. During a gale a slight oscillation
is noticeable on the bridge itself and from the shore. The
tubular bridge carries the London & North Western railway.
Here the channel is about 1100 ft. wide, and divided in the
middle by the Britannia Rock, bare at low water. The tide
generally rises 20 ft., with great velocity. The principal measurements
are: each abutment 176 ft.; from abutment to side
tower, 230 ft.; from side tower to central tower, 460 ft.; breadth
of each side tower at road-level, 32 ft.; breadth of centre tower,
45 ft. 5 in. The total length of the roadway is 1841 ft. 5 in.
The Britannia tower measures at its base 62 by 5212 ft.; with a
total height of 230 ft. There are 101 ft. between the sea at
high tide and the bridge roadway bottom. The limestone used
is from Penmon, 4 m. from Beaumaris. Four stone lions
couchant guard the approaches to the bridge. The first tube
of the tubular bridge was deposited in its place on the 9th of
November 1849, the last on the 13th of September 1850. The
total cost was £621,865. The engineer of the tubular bridge was
Robert Stephenson, who was assisted by Sir William Fairbairn
and Eaton Hodgkinson.
MENAM, or Me Nam (literally the “mother water” or
“main river”), a river of Siam, the chief highway of the interior,
on whose yearly rise and fall depends the rice crop of Lower
Siam. Rising in the Lao or Siamese Shan state of Nan, at a
height of 1400 ft. upon the shoulders of the mountain mass of
Doi Luang, it is first known as the Nam Ngob, after a village of
that name. As the Nam Nan, still a mountain stream, it flows
southward through the state so named between high forested
ranges, and, notwithstanding the frequent rapids along its course,
the natives use it in dug-outs for the transport of hill produce.
From Utaradit, where it leaves the hills of the Lao country, it
flows southward through the plain of Lower Siam, and is navigable
for flat-bottomed native craft of considerable capacity.
It is here known as the Nam, or Menam Pichai. Below Pichai
the river flows through forest and swamp, the latter providing
vast overflow basins for the yearly floods. Thousands of tons
of fish are caught and cured here during the fall of the river after
the rains. Below Pitsunalok the waters of the Menam Yom,
the historic river of Siam, upon which two of its ancient capitals,
Sawankalok and Sukotai, were situated, meander by more than
one tortuous clayey channel to the main river, and combine 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, which is floated in large quantities down
all the upper branches of the river and as a place of transshipment
for boats, Paknam Po is an important and growing town.
From this point southwards 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 at a point about 24 m. west of the bar of the main or Bangkok river. At Ayuthia, another of the ancient capitals of Siam, the Nam Sak flows in from the north-east, an important stream affording communication with the rich tobacco district of Pechabun, and draining the western slopes of the Korat escarpment.
MENANDER (342–291 B.C.), Greek dramatist, the chief representative of the New comedy, was born at Athens. He was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso. He doubtless derived his taste for the comic drama from his uncle Alexis (q.v.). He was the friend and associate, if not the pupil, of Theophrastus, and was on intimate terms with Demetrius of Phalerum. He also enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy Soter, the son of Lagus, who invited him to his court. But Menander, preferring independence and the company of his mistress Glycera in his villa in the Peiraeus, refused. According to the note of a scholiast on the Ibis of Ovid, he was drowned while bathing; his countrymen built him a tomb on the road leading to Athens, where it was seen by Pausanias. A well-known statue in the Vatican, formerly thought to represent Marius, is now generally supposed to be Menander (although some distinguished archaeologists dispute this), and has been identified with his statue in the theatre at Athens, also mentioned by Pausanias.
Menander was the author of more than a hundred comedies, but only gained the prize eight times. His rival in dramatic art and also in the affections of Glycera was Philemon (q.v.), who appears to have been more popular. Menander, however, believed himself to be the better dramatist, and, according to Aulus Gellius, used to ask Philemon: “Don't you feel ashamed whenever you gain a victory over me?” According to Caecilius of Calacte (Porphyry in Eusebius, Praep. evan. x. 3, 13) he was guilty of plagiarism, his Δεισιδαίμων being taken bodily from the Οἰωνιστής of Antiphanes. But, although he attained only moderate success during his lifetime, he subsequently became the favourite writer of antiquity. Copies of his plays were known to Suïdas and Eustathius (10th and 11th centuries), and twenty-three of them, with commentary by Psellus, were said to have been in existence at Constantinople in the 16th century. He is praised by Plutarch (Comparison of Menander and Aristophanes) and Quintilian (Instit. x. l. 69), who accepted the tradition that he was the author of the speeches published under the name of the Attic orator Charisius. A great admirer and imitator of Euripides, he resembles him in his keen observation of practical life, his analysis of the emotions, and his fondness for moral maxims, many of which have become proverbial: “The property of friends is common,” “Whom the gods love die young,” “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (from the Thaïs, quoted in 1 Cor. xv. 33). These maxims (chiefly monostichs) were afterwards collected, and, with additions from other sources, were edited as Μενάνδρου γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι, a kind of moral textbook for the use of schools.
Menander found many Roman imitators. The Eunuchus, Andria, Heautontimorumenos and Adelphi of Terence (called by Caesar “dimidiatus Menander”) were avowedly taken from Menander, but some of them appear to be adaptations and combinations of more than one play; thus, in the Andria were combined Menander’s Ἀνδρία and Περινθία, in the Eunuchus the Εὐνοῦχος and Κόλαξ, while the Adelphi was compiled partly from Menander and partly from Diphilus. The original of Terence’s Hecyra (as of the Phormio) is generally supposed to be, not Menander, but Apollodorus of Carystus. The Bacchides and Stichus of Plautus were probably based upon Menander’s Δὶς Ἐξαπατῶν and Φιλάδελφοι, but the Poenulus does not seem to be from the Καρχηδόνιος, nor the Mostellaria from the Φάσμα, in spite of the similarity of titles. Caecilius Statius, Luscius Lavinius, Turpilius and Atilius also imitated Menander. He was further credited with the authorship of some epigrams of doubtful
- ↑ The chronology in xv. 2, 23, 32, appears to confuse Pekah and Pekahiah, and the view has been held that they were originally one and the same; cf. Cheyne, Ency. Bib., col. 3643.
