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previous: Parmenides This webpage reproduces one of the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1925 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Zeno of Elea

(Vol. II) Diogenes Laërtius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Book IX

 p433  Chapter 4
Melissus

24 Melissus, the son of Ithaegenes, was a native of Samos. He was a pupil of Parmenides. Moreover he came into relations with Heraclitus, on which occasion the latter was introduced by him to the Ephesians, who did not know him,​1 as Democritus was to the citizens of Abdera by Hippocrates. He took part also in politics and won the approval of his countrymen, and for this reason he was elected admiral and won more admiration than ever through his own merit.

In his view the universe was unlimited, unchangeable and immovable, and was one, uniform  p435 and full of matter. There was no real, but only apparent, motion. Moreover he said that we are ought not to make any statements about the gods, for it was impossible to have knowledge of them.

According to Apollodorus, he flourished in the 84th Olympiad.2

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The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 Cf. supra,  § 15.

❦

2 444‑440 B.C.

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