Laudator Temporis Acti

Erasmus, Adagia IV iv 69, in Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 36: Adages IV iii 1 to V ii 51, tr. John N. Grant and Betty I. Knott (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), p. 108:

Stultior Melitide

As stupid as Melitides

Μωρότερος Μελιτίδου, More stupid than Melitides. Melitides was one of those lucky fools whom Homer made famous in his poetry. He is said to have come to help Priam when Troy had already been destroyed, as Eustathius mentions in his commentary on book ten of the Odyssey.¹ Lucian in his Love Affairs: 'For heaven's sake, do you think that I am Melitides or Coroebus?'² The proverb is cited by Zenodotus, who informs us that this fellow was a target for the abuse of the comic writers because of his stupidity: he could not count beyond five and he never laid a finger on a new bride when he married her for fear that she would lay accusations against him to her mother.³ In the same place he mentions another extremely stupid man who did not know which parent gave him birth. We have mentioned Coroebus, the friend of Melitides, elsewhere.⁴ Pausanias said that Aristophanes counted this man along with Butalio and Melitides as a fool.⁵ Suidas says the same, quoting these verses from Aristophanes: 'Up to now the most abject of men, idly gaping / They sit, like a Mamakuthes or a Melitides.'⁶

1 Eustathius 1669.51 on Odyssey 10.552, but he does not give the information recounted by Erasmus. This story is also mentioned in Adagia III i 17 To bring up the artillery when the war is over.

2 Lucian Amores 53

3 This does not appear in the collection of Zenobius in CPG, but is to be found in Zenobius (Aldus) column 59. The name of the other stupid man who did not know whether his mother or father gave him birth was Amphisteides. On Erasmus' use of the name Zenodotus (for Zenobius) see Adagia iv iii 72 n2 (44 above).

4 Adagia II ix 64 As foolish as Coroebus

5 The reference to Pausanias has not been identified. Perhaps Erasmus was thinking of Pausanias the Atticist, who is sometimes cited in the Suda (note the reference to 'Suidas' in the next sentence). There is nothing of this nature, however, in Erbse's edition of the fragments of Pausanias (see Adagia iv vi 17 n2, 221 below).

6 Suda B 468, quoting Aristophanes Frogs 989-91

The original:

Stultior Melitide.

Μωρότερος Μελιτίδου, id est Stultior Melitide. Melitides unus est e felicissimis illis fatuis, quos Homerus suo carmine nobilitavit. Hic jam eversa Troja venisse legitur auxilium laturus Priamo, ut meminit Eustathius decimum Odysseae librum enarrans. Lucianus in Amoribus: Μελιτίδην ἢ Κόροιβον οἴει με, πρὸς θεῶν; id est Melitidem aut Coroebum me putas, per deos? Proverbium refertur a Zenodoto, docens hunc comicorum conviciis fuisse traductum ob stultitiam nec potuisse numerare supra quimque et ducta uxore nuptam non attigisse, veritum ne se illa accusaret apud matrem. Commemorat eodem in loco et alium quendam insigniter stultum, qui dubitarit ex utro parente fuisset natus. De Melitidis sodali Coroebo meminimus alibi. Pausanias admonuit Coroebum una cum Butalione ac Melitide ab Aristophane inter fatuos numerari. Eadem Suidas, adferens hoc carmen ex Aristophane:

Τέως δ᾿ ἀβελτερώτατοι κεχηνότες,
Μαμάκουθαι, Μελιτίδαι κάθηνται,

id est

Hactenus abjectissimi inhiantes
Mamacuthae, Melitidae desident.

See also Menander, The Shield 269-270 (tr. W. G. Arnott):

By the gods, do you think you're talking to Melitides?

πρὸς θεῶν, Μελιτίδῃ / λαλεῖν ὑπείληφας;

I.e., "to a halfwit" (Kenneth Dover on Aristophanes, Frogs 991).