Menander of Ephesus (ca. early 2nd century BC) was the historian whose lost work on the history of
Tyre was used by
Josephus, who quotes Menander's
list of kings of Tyre in his
apologia for the Jews,
Against Apion (1.18). "This Menander wrote the Acts that were done both by the Greeks and Barbarians, under every one of the Tyrian kings, and had taken much pains to learn their history out of their own records." All records having been lost, this second-hand report is the basis for the traditional king-list. Menander, living in a city with a considerable population of Hellenized Jews,
[1] also seems to have written on the history of the
Jews, often cited by Josephus.
The only extant sources for the writing of Menander are citations of his work found in Josephus’s two works Antiquities of the Jews and Against Apion, or in extracts from Josephus's works found in later writers. These later writers were Theophilus of Antioch, Eusebius of Caesarea, and George Syncellus. William Barnes[2] lists the following sources that scholars use to reconstruct the text of Menander
The exact title borne by Menander's lost work is not made clear by Josephus, who gives the following descriptions when he cites Menander “Menander also, one who translated the Tyrian archives out of the dialect of the Phoenicians into the Greek language…” (Ant. 8.5.3). “Menander…when he wrote his Chronology, and translated the Archives of Tyre into the Greek language…” Ant. 9.14.2. “Menander wrote the Acts that were done both by the Greeks and Barbarians, under every one of the Tyrian Kings” (Against Apion 1.18).
Josephus only cited Menander as a means to authenticate themes of his own writings. One such theme was the antiquity of the Jewish people, for which Josephus summoned Menander and several other non-Jewish historians to support his case. In terms of chronology, the earliest event to which Josephus calls Menander as his witness is the reign of Solomon. In Ant. 8.5.3, Josephus describes the help that Hiram, king of Tyre, provided for the building of Solomon's Temple. A description of Hiram's building projects in Tyre is then quoted from Menander in order to show the historicity of the Hiram mentioned in the Bible. A few other details about Hiram are added, including an exchange of riddles between Solomon and Hiram. In Ant. 8.13.2, the drought in Israel in the days of Elijah (1 Kings 17 and 18) is equated, by Josephus, with a drought that Menander said occurred in the days of Ethbaal (Ithobaal I, 878-847 BC), king of the Tyrians. In Ant. 9.14.2, after relating that Shalmaneser V was responsible for the destruction of Samaria (2 Kings 173-6), Menander is cited as bearing witness to the existence of Shalmaneser. Here Menander says that the king of Tyre during this time was named Eluleus, who reigned 36 years, and who successfully endured a siege of five years started by Shalmaneser.
