Hermotimus

(Ἑρμότιμος), of Pedasa in Caria, fell, when a boy, into the hands of Panionius, a Chian, who made him a cunuch, and sold him to the Persians at Sardis. He was sent thence to Susa as a present to the king, and rose high in favour with Xerxes, whose sons he was commissioned to cunduct back to Asia after the battle of Salamis. Some time before this, when Xerxes was at Sardis, and preparing to invade Greece, Hermotimus went to Atarneus in Mysia, where Panionius was; and having decoyed both him and his sons into his power, took cruel vengeance on then for the injury he had received. (Hdt. 8.104_106.) [E.E]

(Ἑρμότιμος).

1. A Stoic philosopher, son of Menecrates, who is introduced by Lucian as one of the speakers in the dialogue entitled Ἑρμότιμος, ἢ περὶ αἱρέσεων. Some suppose that he is merely a fictitious personage.

2. A native of Colophon, a learned geometer mentioned by Proclus. (Comment. ad Euclid, lib. i. p. 19. ed. Basil.) He was one of the immediate predecessors of Euclid, and the discoverer of several geometrical propositions. [C.P.M]

(Ἑρμότιμος), of Clazomenae, called by Lucian a Pythagorean, had the reputation, according to Aristotle, of being the first to suggest the idea which Anaxagorasis commonly said to have originated: that mind (νοῦς) was the cause of all things. Accordingly, Sextus Empiricus places him with Hesiod, Parmenides, and Empedocles, as belonging to that class of philosophers who held a dualistic theory of a material and an active principle being together the origin of the universe.

Other notices that remain of him represent him, like Epimenides and Aristaeus, as a mysterious person, gifted with a supernatural power, by which his soul, apart from the body, wandered from place to place, bringing tidings of distant events in incredibly short spaces of time. At length his enemies burned his body, in the absence of the soul, which put an end to his wanderings. The story is told in Pliny and Lucian. (Plin. Nat. 7.42; Lucian, Eucom. Musc. 7; Arist. Metaph. 1.3; Sext. Empir. ad v. Math. ix., ad Phys. 1.7; D. L. 8.5; Denzinger, De Hermotim. Clazomen. Commentatio, Leodii, 1825.) [C.E.P]

(Ἑρμότιμος). A native of Clazomenae; a philosopher of the Ionian school, of whom many marvels were told. Tradition represented him as a person gifted with a power by which his soul could leave his body, and so bring him tidings of distant events with wonderful speed. At last, his enemies burned his body in the absence of his soul, thus putting an end to him and to his wanderings (Pliny , Pliny H. N. vii. 42).

• story of his sufferings and revenge: Hdt. 8.104-106