Life
Not much information remains regarding the life of Melissus. He may have been born around 500 BC; the date of his death is unknown. The little which is known about him is mostly gleaned from a small passage in Plutarch’s Life of Pericles. He was the commander of the Samian fleet not long before the Peloponnesian War, and defeated Pericles and the Athenian fleet in 441 BC. Plutarch claims that Aristotle says that Melissus had also defeated Pericles in an earlier battle. In his Life of Themistocles, Plutarch denies Stesimbrotus’ claim that Melissus was held in high regard by Themistocles, claiming that he is confusing Themistocles and Pericles. Melissus was reputed to have been the pupil of Parmenides, and the teacher of Leucippus, though one must regard such claims with a fair amount of skepticism.
Read more about this topic: Melissus Of Samos
Famous quotes containing the word life:
““Is there life on Mars?” “No, not there either.””
—Russian saying popular in the Soviet period, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)
“I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange of good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches, cheap.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It’s not the men in my life, but the life in my men.”
—Mae West (1892–1980)