Cercidas was a poet, philosopher, and legislator for his native city Megalopolis.

He was a disciple of Diogenes, whose death he recorded in some Meliambic lines. He is mentioned and cited by Athenaeus (who cites him as a source for the Venus Kallipygos) and Stobaeus. At his death he ordered the first and second books of the Iliad to be buried with him. Aelian relates that Cercidas died expressing his hope of being with Pythagoras of the philosophers, Hecataeus of the historians, Olympus of the musicians, and Homer of the poets, which clearly implies that he himself cultivated these four sciences. He appears to be the same person as Cercidas the Arcadian, who is mentioned by Demosthenes among those Greeks, who, by their cowardice and corruption, enslaved their states to Philip II of Macedon.

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