De ̄mokede ̄s of Kroto ̄n (ca 560 – 500 BCE)
According to H (3.131–137), De ̄mokede ̄s was the most famous doctor of his
time. At high salary he was invited to Aigina, then to Polukrate ̄s of Samos, where he was
taken as a captive by the Persians and served as a doctor to King Darius. He managed to
flee and to return to his native Kroto ̄n (ca 518), where he joined the political community of
the Pythagoreans. His father, the doctor Kallipho ̄n, probably was Pythagorean too
(He ̄rodotos 3.125). P mentions De ̄mokede ̄s’ medical writing, but its authenticity is
dubious.
DK 19; M. Michler, “Demokedes von Kroton,” Gesnerus 23 (1966) 213–229; Zhmud (1997).
Leonid Zhmud
De ̄mokleitos (200 – 160 BCE)
With K invented a binocular dioptra and a cipher, for use as a nocturnal
telegraph, which P improved (Book 10, fr.45–46). This form of the name is other-
wise unattested, but compare the common names De ̄mokle ̄s and De ̄mokleide ̄s (LGPN).
Diels (1920) 85–87.
PTK
De ̄mokle ̄s (200 – 25 BCE)
Wrote on machinery (V 7.pr.14) and was cited an authority on metallurgy and
lithika (P 1.ind.34–35). He also described severe earthquakes in Lydia and Ionia
(S 1.3.17). Possibly he is Damokle ̄s of Messe ̄ne ̄, the student of P.
RE 5.1 (1903) 133 (#13), E. Fabricius.
PTK
De ̄mokritos (Neo-Platonist) (ca 200 – 270 CE)
Listed by his contemporary L in the preface of On final end among Platonists who
expounded their views in writing (P, Vit. Plot. 20.31), but basically upheld their
predecessors’ doctrines (Vit. Plot. 20.60). De ̄mokritos commented on P’s Alcibiade ̄s
(O, In Alc. p. 70.16 Westerink), the Phaedo (D, In Phaed. 1.503.3
Westerink) and perhaps also the Timaeus (P, In Tim. 2.33.13).
That De ̄mokritos’ views, insofar as they survive, are hardly original confirms Longinus’
testimony of De ̄mokritos’ attachment to tradition. De ̄mokritos reportedly identified the
soul’s faculties – a favorite topic among Platonists like D S,
Longinus, P, and Porphurios – with the soul’s substance (I S,
1.370.1–2 W.-H.), a view similar to Longinus’ (Porphurios, On the faculties of the Soul in
Stobaios 1.351.14–19 W.-H.). S (In Met. 105.36–39) reports that De ̄mokritos
along with P and A believed that the Forms always exist in the soul of
the divine demiurge, answering a question of concern to contemporary Platonists,
namely how the Forms relate to the demiurge. De ̄mokritos sided with those maintain-
ing that the divine demiurge is the primary cause of everything that exists, while the
Forms are subordinate to the demiurge, and thus secondary causes. Platonists
like De ̄mokritos preferred to distinguish between soul and intellect within the divine
DE ̄MOKEDE ̄S OF KROTO ̄N