Meno'dotus
（
*Mhno/dotos), a physician of Nicomedeia in Bithynia.
He was a pupil of Antiochus of Laodiceia, and tutor to Herodotus of Tarsus; he belonged to the medical sect of the Empirici, and lived probably about the beginning of the second century after Christ. (
D. L. 9.116; Galen,
De Meth. Med. 2.7, vol. x. p. 142,
Introd. 100.4. vol. xiv. p. 683; Sext. Empir.
Pyrhon. Hypotyp. 1.222, p. 57, ed. Fabric.)
He refuted some of the opinions of Asclepiades of Bithynia (Gal.
De Nat. Facult. 1.14, vol. ii. p. 52), and was exceedingly severe against the Dogmatici (id.
De Subfig. Empir. 100.9, 13, vol. ii. pp. 343, 346, ed. Chart.).
He enjoyed a considerable reputation in his day, and is several times quoted and mentioned by Galen. (
De Cur. Rat. per Ven. Sect. 100.9, vol. xi. p. 277;
Comment. in Hippocr. " De Artic." 3.62, vol. xviii. pt. i. p. 575;
Comment. in Hippocr. " De Rat. Vict. in Morb. Acut." 4.17, vol. xv. p. 766;
De Libr. Propr. 100.9, vol. xix. p. 38;
De Compos. Medicam. sec. Locos, vi. i. vol. xii. p. 904.)
Works
He appears to have written some works which are quoted by Diogenes Laertius, but are not now extant.
There is, however, among Galen's writings a short treatise entitled,
Γαλήνου Παραφράστου τοῦ Μηνοδότου Προτρεπτικος Δόγος ἐπὶ τὰς Τέχνας,
Galeni Paraphrastae , Menodoti Suasoria, ad Artes Oratio. This is supposed to have been written originally by Menodotus, and afterwards revised and polished by Galen; but its history is not quite satisfactorily made out, and its genuineness (as far as Galen is concerned) has been doubted. Its object is sufficiently expressed by the title, and it is composed in a somewhat declamatory style, which has perhaps caused it to be both unduly admired, and unjustly depreciated.
Editions
On the one hand, Erasmus translated it himself into Latin, and it has been several times published apart from Galen's other works; and on the other, a writer in the Cambridge
Museum Criticum. (vol. ii. p. 318) calls it "a very inferior composition, incorrect in language, inelegant in arrangement, and weak in argument."
Perhaps the latest edition is that by Abr. Willet, Greek and Latin, 8vo. Lugd. Bat. 1812. [
W.A.G]
