Metrodorus
3. Of CHIOS, a disciple of Democritus, or, according to other accounts, of Nessus of Chios He flourished about B. C. 330.
He was a philosopher of considerable reputation, and professed the doctrine of the sceptics in their fullest sense. Metrodorus did not confine himself to philosophy, but studied, at least, if he did not practise, medicine, on which he wrote a good deal. It is probably he who is quoted more than once by Pliny. He was the instructor of Hippocrates and Anaxarchus.
Works
Περὶ φύσεως
Cicero (Cic. Ac. 2.23.73) gives us a translation of the first sentence of his work Περὶ φύσεως: Nego scire nos sciamusne aliquid an nihil sciamus: ne id ipsum quidem nescire aut scire; nec omnino sitne aliquid, an nihil sit.
The commencement of the same work is quoted in Eusebius (Praep. Evang. xiv. p. 765).
Τρωϊκά
Athenaeus (iv. p. 184a) quotes from a work by Metrodorus, entitled Τρωϊκά.
Περὶ ἱστορίας
A work, Περὶ ἱστορίας, is cited by the scholiast on Apollonius (4.834) as the production of a man named Metrodorus; but we have no means of determining which of the name is referred to.
Further Information
D. L. 9.58; Suidas, s. vv. Δημόκριτος, Πύρρων; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 660; Voss. de Hist. Graecis, pp. 54, 470, ed. West.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.