Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Menander 4.
MENANDER, minor literary persons.
1. A rhetorician of Laodiceia, on the river Lycus, wrote a commentary on the τέχνη of Hermogenes, and on the προγυμνάσματα of Minucianus, and other works. (Suid. s. v.)
2. Of Ephesus, an historian, wrote the acts of kings among the Greeks and the barbarians (τὰς ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστου τῶν βασιλέων πράξεις παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησι καὶ βαρϐάροις γενομένας), founded on the native chronicles of the respective countries, as we learn from Josephus, who preserves a considerable fragment of the work respecting Hiram, king of Tyre. (Joseph, c. Apion. i. 18.) He is also quoted by other authors. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 467, ed. Westermann.)
Menander of Pergamus, who wrote on Phoenician history, appears to have been the same person, on account of the resemblance of the fragment quoted from him by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. p. 140) to that quoted by Josephus. (Comp. Tatian, adv. Graec. 58.) An historian of the same name, who wrote a work on Cyprus, is quoted in the Etymologicum Magnum, s. v. Σφηκεία. (Vossius, l. c.)
3. Protector (Προτίκτωρ, i. e. body-guard), the son of Euphratas of Byzantium, was a rhetorician and historical writer under the emperor Mauricius, whose reign began in A. D. 581. He has left us an account of his own literary pursuits, in a fragment preserved by Suidas (s. v). He continued the history of the Eastern Empire from the point where Agathias broke off, namely, the twenty-third year of Justinian, A. D. 558, down nearly to the death of Tiberius II. in A. D. 583. A considerable fragment of this history is preserved in the Eklogae of embassies, published by Hoeschel, Aug. Vindol. 1603. Menander is often quoted by Suidas, and is mentioned by Theophylact of Simocatta (Hist. Mauric. i. 3), who continued his history, and by Constantinus Porphyrogenitus (Them. i. 2). According to Niebuhr (Dexipp. p. 281), he may be trusted as an historian, but his style is a close imitation of Agathias, varied by occasional ridiculous attempts at fine writing. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. pp. 540, 541; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 329, ed. Westermann.) There is one epigram by him in the Greek Anthology. (Jacobs, vol. xiii. p. 916.)
A few insignificant writers of the same name are mentioned by Fabricius (Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 454) and Meineke (Menand. et Philem. Reliq. pp. xxxvii.—xxxix.)