Nikome ̄de ̄s (ca 225 – 200 BCE)
Mathematician, credited by later authors with inventing an easily constructed group of
mechanical curves, conchoids (On Conchoid Lines, lost), which could be used to solve two
important classical geometrical problems: doubling a cube (by finding two mean propor-
tionals), and trisecting an angle. P, Coll. 4 ( pp. 242–246, 274 Hultsch), P ( p. 272
Fr.), and I (in S In Categ., CAG 8 [1907] 192.19–24) also credit him
with using a quadratrix in solving the squaring of a circle. E, In Archim. circ. dim.
(3.114 H.), reports that Nikome ̄de ̄s sharply criticized E’ solution to the problem
of two mean proportionals.
Knorr (1986) 219–220.
Daryn Lehoux
Nikome ̄de ̄s Iatrosophist (900 – 1200 CE?)
Wrote a lexicon of plant names (typical of post-classical medical literature), attested by a
15th c. manuscript in the Iviron Monastery in Mount Athos (4271.151) and an early 16th c.
one (Paris, BNF, graecus 2224: the basis of Delatte’s edition). Nikome ̄de ̄s’ lexicon, containing
neither magical terms nor plant names borrowed from Arabic, pertains to a pre-13th/14th
c. period and perhaps even to the 10th c. The current text is clearly augmented with
references to other manuscripts and literary explanations, probably first added in some
manuscript as scholia, later integrated into the main text. Such a lexicon, diffuse in genre,
was probably aimed at connecting the medical practices of non-learned healers with
learned technical texts.
Ed.: A. Delatte, Anecdota Atheniensia 2 (1939) 302–318.
Diels 2 (1907) 69; RE 17.1 (1936) 500 (#15), H. Diller; M. Thomson, Textes grecs inedits relatifs aux plantes
(1955) 176–177; Alain Touwaide, “Lexica medico-botanica byzantina. Prolégomènes à une étude” in
Tês filiês tade ta dôra. Miscellánea léxica en memoria de Conchita Serrano (1999) 211–228 at 214.
Alain Touwaide
Nikome ̄de ̄s’ “first” conchoid. Point D is allowed to slide along fixed line AB. The length of
line DG is constant, but it is always oriented toward point E, fixed below line AB (the Greek term
for a line that verges toward a distant point like this was a neusis). Point G then traces out a
conchoid. © Lehoux and Massie
NIKOME ̄DE ̄S