Bolus of Mendes

For another name identifying a pseudographical work Bolos of Mendes, see Pseudo-Democritus.

Bolus of Mendes (Greek: Βῶλος ὁ Μενδήσιος, Bōlos ho Mendēsios; fl. 3rd century BC) was a philosopher, a neopythagorean writer of works of esoterica and medicine, in Ptolemaic Egypt.^[1] Both the Suda,^[2] and a later work mistakenly attributed to Eudokia Makrembolitissa—Ἰωνιά; Bed of Violets,^[3] probably a 16th-century forgery^[4] by Constantine Paleocappa—write of a Pythagorean philosopher of Mendes in Egypt. He is described as one who wrote on marvels, potent remedies, and astronomical phenomena.^[5] The Suda, however, also describes a separate Bolus who was a philosopher of the school of Democritus,^[6] who wrote Inquiry, and Medical Art, containing "natural medical remedies from some resources of nature." However, from a passage of Columella,^[7] it appears that Bolos of Mendes and this other Bolus, follower of Democritus, were one and the same person.^[5] He seems to have lived following the time of Theophrastus, whose work Historia Plantarum ('On Plants'), Bolus appears to have known.^[8]

Notes

1. Paul Kroh, ed. Lexikon der Antiken Autoren, (Stuttgart) 1972:111; Max Wellmann in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 3.1, (Stuttgart) 1897:676–677, s.v. "Bolos 3".
2. Suda, Bolus, β482; cf. Eudocia
3.  Smith, William, ed. (1870), "Eudocia Augusta Macrembolis", Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 2, pp. 80–81 via Tufts
4. Dorandi, Tiziano (2013). "Introduction". Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Cambridge University Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 978-0521886819.
5. Smith 1870.
6. Suda, Bolus, β481
7. Columella, vii. 5; cf. Stobaeus, Serm. 51
8. Stephanus of Byzantium Apsynthus; Scholium ad Nicand. Theriac. 764

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870), "Bolus", Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, p. 498-499