Melissus
historical figure · 5 works · 5 mentions · 6 anchored passages
in the texts
Lucullus
Pre-Socratic Eleatic philosopher who held that being is infinite, unchangeable, and eternal.
Melissus, that which was infinite and unchangeable, and had been always and would be.
Helen
Philosopher named for arguing that the whole of infinite nature is one.
For how could one surpass Gorgias, who dared to assert that nothing exists of the things that are, or Zeno, who ventured to prove the same things as possible and again as impossible, or Melissus who, although things in nature are infinite in number, made it his task to find proofs that the whole is one!
Isthmean
A Theban victor in horse-racing and the pancratium, of small stature but formidable strength, praised for cunning like a fox.
For Melissus was not allotted the nature of Orion;
And yet once there went from Thebes, Cadmus’ city, a hero short in stature but unflinching in spirit.
May we win the favor of the Muses and kindle that torch of song, a worthy garland from the pancratium for Melissus, too, the scion of the race of Telesias.
Theaetetus
Eleatic philosopher, named together with Parmenides as teaching that the universe is a single motionless whole.
Because I have a reverential fear of examining in a flippant manner Melissus and the others who teach that the universe is one and motionless, and because I reverence still more one man, Parmenides.
So that it is motionless, the name of which is the All, and all the other doctrines maintained by Melissus and Parmenides and the rest, in opposition to all these they maintain that everything is one and is stationary within itself, having no place in which to move.