Bolus of Mendes

Who is Bolus of Mendes?

Bolus of Mendes was an ancient Greek philosopher, a neo-Pythagorean writer of works of esoterica and medical works, who worked in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Suda, and Eudocia after him, mention a Pythagorean philosopher of Mendes in Egypt, who wrote on marvels, potent remedies, and astronomical phenomena. The Suda, however, also describes a Bolus who was a philosopher of the school of Democritus, who wrote Inquiry, and Medical Art, containing "natural medical remedies from some resources of nature." But, from a passage of Columella, it appears that Bolos of Mendes and the follower of Democritus were one and the same person; and he seems to have lived following the time of Theophrastus, whose work On Plants he appears to have known.